Gymnastics:Ireland's Kieran Behan finished a very creditable fourth in the final of the Floor discipline at the London Prepares event at the North Greenwich Arena tonight.
The 22-year-old learned yesterday that he had earned qualification for the Olympic Games after finishing sixth in Tuesday’s preliminaries and went on to improve his placing in the final with a score of 14.900.
Sixth of the eight athletes on the floor, Behan was in the bronze medal position after his routine. But the next competitor, Chile’s Enrique Gonzalez, wowed the judges to equal the mark of Britain’s Daniel Purvis, both scoring 15.466, with Purvis taking gold on the strength of a better execution score.
The quality of Behan’s performance was shown in the fact that he recorded the second highest execution mark of 9.000, behind Purvis’s 9.033, with a slightly awkward landing on his final move costing him valuable marks.
Britain’s Kristian Thomas took the bronze medal with a score of 15.333.
His fourth-placed finish capped a remarkable few days for the London-born Behan – his father is from Dublin and his mother from Monaghan – after becoming just the second Irish gymnast to qualify for a summer Olympics after Barry McDonald competed at the 1996 staging in Atlanta.
Behan has battled back from several serious health setbacks that twice left him confined to a wheelchair.
However, World Cup series success last year and a solid performance at the World Championships in Tokyo earned him the chance to qualify at the test event, which he duly took.
“To come from all that and everything that’s happened with injuries I’ve got the luck of the Irish on my side most definitely,” Behan said after learning of his qualification on Wednesday night.
“I’m going to try and max out my speciality piece which is my floor. I’ve definitely got the execution I just need a little bit more on my start value now and that would be the main objective for 2012.
“It’s going to be fantastic to represent Ireland and do six pieces at the Olympic Games. It is what dreams are made of.”