Olympics gymnasts can now relax a bit for event finals

LONDON — Olympic gymnastics event finals are a bit like a prom after-party. Now that the team and all-around competitions are over, it’s time to relax and just have fun.

After two days off, the gymnastics competition returns Sunday with three days of event finals. It’s time to relax a little or even try new things.

In 2008, American Jonathan Horton added an extra release move on his horizontal-bar routine and almost won gold. He wound up with silver — and is back in the final again, on Tuesday.

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Gabrielle Douglas, who grabbed the attention of the gymnastics world by leading her U.S. team to gold and then led from the first rotation to the last in winning the all-around gold, will have a chance to win two more medals when she participates in the uneven bars final Monday and the balance beam final Tuesday.

Defending world all-around champion Jordyn Wieber, who was left stunned and in tears when she didn’t qualify for the all-around final because she was beaten by both Douglas and teammate Alexandra Raisman, will have a chance to win a redemptive gold on floor exercise Tuesday.

And McKayla Maroney, the 16-year-old vault wizard from Long Beach, will be the huge favorite to win that event Sunday.

One of her other seven competitors? Oksana Chusovitina, 37, who is in her sixth Olympic Games and competing under the flag of her third country (the Soviet Unified Team came first, then Uzbekistan and finally Germany, where she moved so her son could have an illness treated).

Americans who finished in the top eight on their apparatus to qualify for the event finals are Jake Dalton, who will be in the men’s floor exercise final Sunday; Sam Mikulak from Newport Coast, in the men’s vault Monday, the same day Douglas will be on the uneven bars; Raisman and Wieber on floor exercise; Horton and Danell Leyva, the men’s all-around bronze medalist, on the horizontal bar; and Douglas and Raisman on the balance beam Tuesday.

“I can’t wait,” Maroney said about her chance to add an Olympic gold to the world championship gold medal she’d won in 2011. “It will be so fun.”

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