Gymnastics World Championships

Yesterday evening I watched the ladies win a silver medal in the gymnastics world championships team finals on TV. 
This evening, I took my Mum with me to watch the men at the M&S arena in Liverpool to see if they could replicate the result. Both teams had qualified in second position. 
After the first rotation on the floor, we were sitting in second position behind Japan which was quite predictable. What we were definitely not expecting was for James Hall to fall off the pommel horse followed by Joe Fraser doing the same, not once but twice! We were dead last in eighth position, 9 points off the lead and all medal hopes seemingly over. 
Very disappointed and dejected, we were wishing we had booked to see the ladies last night......

With two rotations left we were still in sixth position and making very slow progress. Some great performances on vault, parallel bars and rings put us in 4th with only the high bar to go - a risky piece of apparatus.
Could we stay on and make up 1.2 points against Italy who were currently in 3rd?  There was tension and excitement all around the arena as we realised that there was a real chance of a medal.
The Italians had issues on the pommel horse and lost at least 2 marks, and we did two good routines on the high bar meaning all we had to do, was to stay on the high bar and not fall off.  Jake Jarman played it safe and did an easier but solid routine and the crowd went wild as he nailed his landing - we'd done it! What an absolutely amazing comeback. A fantastic night out with more finals to come in the next few days. 

I didn't take many photos as I wasn't allowed to bring my big camera and the lighting was not great, so I soon realised it would be a waste of time to take lots of shots. This is probably the best of a bad lot but gives a sense of the evening - it's Courtney Tulloch on the rings.