The best gymnasts don’t always get the chance to contend for Olympic medals. Why?

“Fairness.”

The top 24 gymnasts after qualifying advance to the all-around final while the top eight on each apparatus make the event final. But there’s a catch. It’s called the “two-per-country” rule, and it will no doubt keep some Americans — and some Chinese and Japanese — on the sidelines to prevent the powerhouse countries from scooping up all the medals.

Except the rule doesn’t really do that, leading to no shortage of outrage every time someone gets “two per countried.”  

“It’s just stupid. I think the two-per-country rule is the dumbest thing ever,” Aly Raisman said in 2016, after Simone Biles, Raisman and Gabby Douglas, the reigning Olympic champion and world silver medalist at the time, went 1-2-3 in qualifying but only Biles and Raisman made the all-around final.

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“Who cares if there’s five Chinese girls in the finals? If they’re the best, they should compete.”

Wise words.

So how did this come to be? Back in 1973, the International Olympic Committee was concerned that the top countries were winning everything, to the exclusion of countries with less depth. According to gymnastics-history.com, a site that is exactly what its name implies, four Soviet women made the six-person vault final at the 1972 Olympics while Japan had all but one of the high-bar finalists.

The IOC suggested the International Gymnastics Federation do something about this and the FIG settled on limiting countries to three gymnasts in the all-around final and two gymnasts in each event final. No matter if the gymnasts who got into the final because someone above them was two-per-countried had a realistic shot at a medal or not. It at least would no longer look like the best countries were hogging all the medals.

The changes took effect at the 1976 Olympics, according to gymnastics-history.com. The rules were again changed after the 2000 Games, when Romania had the top three finishers in the women’s all-around.

Andreea Raducan was stripped of her gold medal after testing positive for a banned substance, pseudoephedrine, that was in cold medicine she’d been given by the team doctor, but no matter. Going forward, countries were allowed only two athletes in the all-around final.

At every Olympics since then, the United States has had at least one gymnast finish in the top 24 in all-around qualifying and not make the final because of the two-per-country rule. In 2016, Raisman and Douglas both missed the balance beam final despite having the seventh- and eighth-best scores in qualifying because Simone Biles and Laurie Hernandez had finished ahead of them.

And it’s not just the Americans! Russia had three of the top six in all-around qualifying in Tokyo. China could have had three in the uneven bars final in 2012.

Aside from the participation trophy feel of this, the top countries have found workarounds when they’ve needed. Say their top gymnast had a rough day and wound up behind two of his or her teammates. One of those two would usually find themselves with a sudden “injury” or other reason they were unable to compete.

Tatiana Gutsu was the reigning European champion in 1992, but a fall in qualifying left her behind three other gymnasts on the Unified Team. One was forced to withdraw from the all-around final with a knee injury, and Gutsu went on to win the gold medal over Shannon Miller.

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