Gymnast Ray Zapata finished seventh this Saturday in the floor exercise final of the Paris Games, the same specialty in which he won silver in Tokyo 2020, after presenting an exercise with less difficulty than in the qualifying round, nailing all his series and taking a foot out a few millimeters in the final diagonal.
Born in the Dominican Republic and a resident of Lanzarote since the age of 10, Zapata, who had been third in the qualifying round, obtained a score of 14.333 points, in a competition won by the Filipino Carlos Yulo (15.000).
Silver went to the Israeli Artem Dolgopyat (14.966) and bronze to the British Jake Jarman (14.933).
"The Games are a party and I want to join that party," said the gymnast from Lanzarote before arriving in France. This Saturday he took the confetti cannon to Bercy and ended up celebrating his status as a finalist with his children, because he didn't get any further.
After an Olympic cycle without absolutely any outstanding results, divided between rest, injuries and the preparation of other apparatus to help the team, he arrived in Paris and made the third best floor exercise in the preliminary round. The gymnast from Lanzarote was confident that the Games would be, once again, his territory.
From 14.600 on the first day he went to 14.333, after endless minutes in which the judges analyzed whether he had stepped out of the mat in the final diagonal. They considered that he had done so and penalized him with 0.1, even if it was by very little.
He presented a difficulty of 6.2, one tenth less than in the qualifying round, and the execution was 8.233.
The next two gymnasts, the Israeli Artem Dolgopyat -gold in Tokyo with the same score as Zapata- and the Filipino Carlos Yulo, a floor prodigy who lives and trains in Japan, surpassed the Spaniard's score and made the medal an impossible goal: 14.966 the first, 15.000 Yulo.
No one else surpassed these, but they did surpass Zapata. The bronze went to Jarman, world vault champion and Olympic debutant, who had been the best in the qualifying round.
The same Ray who every time he finished his exercise in the CAR training sessions in Madrid shouted in pain and exclaimed "I'm old!", fell to seventh place. He enjoyed his exercise but could not round off the party with a podium.
At 31 years old, and with three Games in his history, the decision about his future is in his hands and in what his legs can withstand.