Chapter 40The Chinese team was on fire! It was coming down to them, the Japanese, the Americans in third, and, too close for comfort in fourth, the Germans.
Vij did his thing on vault. Cory and Steven were pumped and performed as well as they ever had. Ben was holding it together. His own vault was spot-on, his score on rings right up there. As he came off the floor, knowing the judges’ numbers would be nowhere near as high as the score his near-perfect run on the parallel bars had earned, he felt he had done his best. His teammates agreed as they each—except for Richie, who was up next—offered a man-hug, in sequence, as he passed.
Richie made a couple of minor errors on pommel horse and parallels. In gymnastics, minor errors equaled the loss of big important points.
Ben decided, on the
