British men seal Olympic team spot

Britain's male gymnastics squad seized their last chance to qualify a full team for this year's Olympic Games in London after coming out on top in the test event here on Tuesday.

The hosts, who had to finish in the first four of the eight competing nations at the O2 Arena in Greenwich, east London, to book an Olympic team place, came into this competition under pressure after their shock blow-out at last year's World Championships in Tokyo.

But they banished doubts about their collective nerve by winning Tuesday's team event with a total of 358.227 points ahead of France on 350.659, Spain (347.292) and Italy (346.334), as Canada, Brazil, Puerto Rico and Belarus all missed out. Daniel Purvis led the British men with a fine all-round performance, finishing with the highest individual score of the day of 89.948 points for the six pieces of apparatus.

AFP