Great Britain beat rivals by over seven points
• 'It was amazing. It was a big relief,' says Daniel Keatings
• 'It was amazing. It was a big relief,' says Daniel Keatings
Daniel Keatings of Great Britain in action on the parallel bars. Photograph: Steven Paston/Action Images
Britain's male gymnasts qualified in style for the London 2012 Olympics in the arena in which they will compete this summer, confirming a full quota of places at the Games. The British team were forced to go through the all-or-nothing process owing to a disappointing performance at the world championships in Tokyo in November last year that left them 10th and outside the top eight automatic qualification places.
Needing to finish in the top four, the British team laid to rest those demons and delivered with few mistakes to top the leaderboard by more than seven points from France, Spain and Italy.
In doing so, they secured a full complement of men's places for the first time in 20 years and raised hopes of a possible medal opportunity in the team event. Qualification, ultimately secured with ease, was seen as vital to continuing the progress made by British Gymnastics over the past five years.
Liverpudlian Daniel Purvis, the all-rounder who came fourth at the world championships, led the way including a 16.266 routine – the highest score of the night – on the vault and a score of 15.4 on the floor.
He also finished top of the individual rankings and said that the failure in Japan "may have been a blessing in disguise" given that the confidence boost that Tuesday night's performance would bring. His team-mates Kristian Thomas and Daniel Keatings came second and third in the individual rankings.
A nerveless start on the high bar, the apparatus on which the British team made a series of disastrous mistakes in Tokyo from which they failed to recover, set the tone for a confident display without any falls.
Their score of 358.227 would have put them third at the world championships, but Keatings refused to be drawn on their medal chances: "I don't want to jinx anything but it was a great performance today and hopefully we'll put in a performance like that [at the Games]. If we do, who knows what will happen."
Keatings, who fell from the bar in Tokyo, made a confident start and dismounted to loud cheers, while Thomas also impressed with a score of 15.133 at the 20,000 capacity arena that will host artistic gymnastics and the basketball finals during the Games.
"It was amazing. It was a big relief, this was such an important competition. We've worked hard over the festive period, we didn't have a day off and it's really paid off today," said Keatings. "We really had to come together as a team, they're like family now."
The men's artistic team was comprised of Keatings, Louis Smith, Purvis, Thomas, Ruslan Panteleymonov, Max Whitlock and the reserve Sam Hunter. On each set of apparatus, five of the six members of the team competed and the top four of those five scores are added together.
Smith, the former X-Factor hopeful who won a surprise bronze on the pommel in Beijing and competed only on that apparatus for the team, played to the crowd and scored 15.133. He wobbled slightly but steadied himself and finished with a flourish, the relative difficulty of the routine ensuring a high score. Keatings and Whitlock also scored over 15.
Smith and Keatings had spoken before the event of the likely pressure but that will be nothing compared to that they will face at the same venue this summer. "The boys were all switched on, they all did the job and what we have to do now is not get complacent. You have to be switched on 100% of the time, you have to do the right training and you have to respect the competition," said Smith, the team captain.
Keatings paid tribute to the crowd: "They were amazing, they created an amazing atmosphere and gave us an extra boost going on to each piece." Eddie Van Hoof, the British Gymnastics technical director, said: "It was a difficult start on the high bar, which was our disaster piece in Tokyo. We rehearsed it every day, the team handled it very well and from then on everything was going to build."
The difficulty level on each piece of apparatus had been toned down to ensure that unnecessary risks were not taken. If Britain had failed to qualify, they would have been able to select just one male gymnast for the Games; now they will take a full team of five.
The British women have already qualified and will not be in action at the test event but two of the younger team members, Jocelyn Hunt and Rebecca Tunney, will compete as part of a mixed group to gain experience.
Next Wednesday, the women's rhythmic gymnastics group will attempt to attain a baseline score required by the British Olympic Association in order to take up a host nation place.
The nine-day London Prepares event is the first in a new round of events designed to test every aspect of the venues that will host the Games in July.
The O2, here renamed the North Greenwich Arena to comply with the International Olympic Committee's "clean venues" policy, handles large crowds every night of the week and had already hosted the 2009 Gymnastics World Championships so the focus of this test event was on London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games's scoring and technology.
"It is our biggest one to date," said Paul Deighton, Locog's chief executive, ahead of the event. "The focus for this event is on the field of play. Making sure that our timing and results technology works is really important and, of course, to test our workforce."
In common with Locog's attempts to jazz up the presentation of other sports, which saw loud chart hits between games at the table tennis test event and the introduction of bright blue hockey pitches, the platforms surrounding the apparatus were shocking pink rather than the usual navy blue.
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