2008 Olympics
The top two spot of China and Japan was contested in this Olympics with Japan as the reigning Olympic men's team gold medalist, and with Tomita as the most senior men's team member, and leader. China's men's team won the gold medal with a team total of 286.125, over seven points more than Japan's total of 278.875, which was only good enough for the silver medal.
Based on the preliminary rounds of the competition, Tomita finished sixth in the all-around qualifier. Kōhei Uchimura and Koki Sakamoto finished ahead of him, ranking fourth and fifth respectively. Tomita fell on vault in the qualifier, thus finishing .050 behind his teammate, Koki Sakamoto. The top 24 gymnasts based on the preliminary results would qualify to compete in the all-around, because of the rule that only the top two qualifiers of each country would advance to the all-around competition, it appeared that Tomita would not continue to the all-around finals, with his teammates Uchimura and Sakamoto competing instead. However, Japanese head coach, Koji Gushiken, announced that Tomita would replace Sakamoto and compete in the all-around, due to his experience.
In the all-around competition, Tomita was in medal contention until on his third event, still rings, an accident caused him to crash on the mat from the rings. Tomita was shown to be in pain after his fall and was later observed to be applying an ice pack to his neck. Apparently, the accident caused Tomita to injure his neck, shoulder and lower back. Tomita however continued with the competition and performed well in the last three events lined up. In the end, French gymnast Benoît Caranobe edged out Tomita for an all-around bronze by 0.175. Tomita finished 4th. In an interview, Tomita said that did not give up until the end as he had been given the opportunity to compete in the event by taking the place of teammate Koki Sakamoto, who had a better score than he did in the qualifying.
Tomita qualified for the men's high bar event finals and finished sixth.
Read more about this topic: Hiroyuki Tomita