Cournoyer, who trains out of Club Gymnika with coach Jean-Sebastien Tougas, competed in a mixed group of athletes in subdivision two of three along with teams from Japan, Great Britain, Brazil, and Switzerland.
Starting on vault, Cournoyer debuted a new vault to score a 13.866 after landing on his feet but stepping out of bounds to receive a 0.1 deduction. Next up was the parallel bars where he struggled a little bit with his execution and scored a 12.333.
Moving on to the horizontal bar for the third rotation, Cournoyer had a strong routine and scored a 13.266. It was during the fourth rotation on floor where he experienced the most difficulties – stepping out of bounds on his first pass to receive a 0.3 deduction, and then having trouble with some of his easier skills, leaving him with a disappointing score of 11.766. Next up was the pommel horse where he bounced back to perform a clean routine, scoring a 12.800. Last up was rings where Cournoyer finished strong with a clean routine, but a few shakes, to score a 13.666. His total score for the day was 77.697 – well below the score of 82 he’d hoped would advance him to the all-around finals.
“It was a difficult competition, and not necessarily the performance I was expecting, but I had a lot of fun, and I’m very happy with the experience I’ve gained, and the memories I’ve made,” said Cournoyer following the competition.
“I had a lot of new skills, and all of them went through – it’s the easier ones that I missed but that happens. Pommel is an event that I had a lot of trouble with in training and that went through, and rings was a tough routine with a new skill and it went through and I was very happy with it. I finished strong, I had some mistakes, but overall, I’m very happy with everything.”
The top-24 athletes from the qualification rounds advanced to the all-around final on Wednesday, July 28th, while the top-8 teams advanced to the team final on Monday, July 26th. The apparatus finals, featuring the top-8 athletes for each from the qualifiers start on Sunday, Aug 1st, and wrap-up on Tuesday, Aug 3rd.
Sunday will feature the qualifying rounds in women’s artistic gymnastics with Canada competing in sub-division 4 at 5:05pm JT /4:05am ET along with teams from Spain and France.
FINAL RESULTS FOR RENE COURNOYER:
- All-around: 49th
- Floor: 68th
- Pommel Horse: 55th
- Rings: 33rd
- Vault: No ranking – only competed 1 vault
- Parallel Bars: 63rd
- Horizontal Bar: 36th
For full results, please visit: https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/olympic-games/en/results/artistic-gymnastics/olympic-schedule-and-results-date=2021-07-24.htm
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