Gymnastics at the 1988 Summer Olympics – Men's parallel bars

This was the 17th appearance of the event, which is one of the five apparatus events held every time there were apparatus events at the Summer Olympics (no apparatus events were held in 1900, 1908, 1912, or 1920). Two of the eight finalists from 1984 returned: sixth-place finisher Li Ning of China and seventh-place finisher Daniel Winkler of West Germany. Vladimir Artemov of the Soviet Union was the reigning (1987) world champion, with his teammate Dmitry Bilozerchev runner-up and a pair of East Germans (Sven Tippelt and Sylvio Kroll) third and fourth.[1]

Chinese Taipei made its debut in the men's parallel bars. The United States made its 15th appearance, most of any nation; the Americans had missed only the inaugural 1896 event and the boycotted 1980 Games.

Each nation entered a team of six gymnasts or up to three individual gymnasts. All entrants in the gymnastics competitions performed both a compulsory exercise and a voluntary exercise for each apparatus. The scores for all 12 exercises were summed to give an individual all-around score. These exercise scores were also used for qualification for the apparatus finals. The two exercises (compulsory and voluntary) for each apparatus were summed to give an apparatus score. Half of the preliminary score carried over to the final. The 1984 Games had expanded the number of finalists from six to eight. Nations were still limited to two finalists each. Others were ranked 9th through 89th. [1][2]

All times are Korea Standard Time adjusted for daylight savings (UTC+10)

Eighty-nine gymnasts competed in the parallel bars event during the compulsory and optional rounds on September 18 and 20. The eight highest scoring gymnasts advanced to the final on September 24. Each country was limited to two competitors in the final. Half of the points earned by each gymnast during both the compulsory and optional rounds carried over to the final. This constitutes the "prelim" score.

Rank	Gymnast	Nation	Preliminary			Final
			Compulsory	Voluntary	Total	​1⁄2 Prelim.	Final	Total
	Vladimir Artemov	Soviet Union	10.00	9.95	19.95	9.975	9.950	19.925
	Valeri Liukin	Soviet Union	9.90	10.00	19.90	9.950	9.950	19.900
	Sven Tippelt	East Germany	9.90	9.80	19.70	9.850	9.900	19.750
4	Kalofer Khristozov	Bulgaria	9.80	9.95	19.75	9.875	9.850	19.725
5	Marius Gherman	Romania	9.80	9.90	19.70	9.850	9.850	19.700
6	Curtis Hibbert	Canada	9.80	9.90	19.70	9.850	9.825	19.675
7	Sylvio Kroll	East Germany	9.85	9.90	19.75	9.875	9.750	19.625
8	Boris Preti	Italy	9.80	9.90	19.70	9.850	9.750	19.600
9	Dmitry Bilozerchev	Soviet Union	9.90	10.00	19.90	Did not advance
10	Holger Behrendt	East Germany	9.80	9.90	19.70	Did not advance
	Sergey Kharkov	Soviet Union	9.80	9.90	19.70	Did not advance
	Vladimir Novikov	Soviet Union	9.80	9.90	19.70	Did not advance
13	Gyorgy Guczoghy	Hungary	9.75	9.90	19.65	Did not advance
	Stoyko Gochev	Bulgaria	9.80	9.85	19.65	Did not advance
	Ulf Hoffmann	East Germany	9.80	9.85	19.65	Did not advance
	Vladimir Gogoladze	Soviet Union	9.75	9.90	19.65	Did not advance
	Zsolt Borkai	Hungary	9.80	9.85	19.65	Did not advance
18	Christian Chevalier	France	9.80	9.80	19.60	Did not advance
	Claude Carmona	France	9.80	9.80	19.60	Did not advance
	Jury Chechi	Italy	9.75	9.85	19.60	Did not advance
	Koichi Mizushima	Japan	9.70	9.90	19.60	Did not advance
	Guo Linxian	China	9.70	9.90	19.60	Did not advance
	Ralf Büchner	East Germany	9.80	9.80	19.60	Did not advance
	Toshiharu Sato	Japan	9.80	9.80	19.60	Did not advance
25	Charles Lakes	United States	9.60	9.95	19.55	Did not advance
	Paolo Bucci	Italy	9.70	9.85	19.55	Did not advance
	Philippe Chartrand	Canada	9.75	9.80	19.55	Did not advance
	Xu Zhiqiang	China	9.70	9.85	19.55	Did not advance
29	Adrian Sandu	Romania	9.80	9.70	19.50	Did not advance
	Daisuke Nishikawa	Japan	9.75	9.75	19.50	Did not advance
	Petar Georgiev	Bulgaria	9.70	9.80	19.50	Did not advance
	Scott Johnson	United States	9.70	9.80	19.50	Did not advance
	Takahiro Yamada	Japan	9.75	9.75	19.50	Did not advance
	Yukio Iketani	Japan	9.70	9.80	19.50	Did not advance
35	Andreas Aguilar	West Germany	9.65	9.80	19.45	Did not advance
	Li Chunyang	China	9.70	9.75	19.45	Did not advance
	Josef Zellweger	Switzerland	9.65	9.80	19.45	Did not advance
	Nicolae Bejenaru	Romania	9.60	9.85	19.45	Did not advance
39	Brad Peters	Canada	9.70	9.70	19.40	Did not advance
	Csaba Fajkusz	Hungary	9.60	9.80	19.40	Did not advance
	Gabriele Sala	Italy	9.70	9.70	19.40	Did not advance
	Park Jong-Hoon	South Korea	9.70	9.70	19.40	Did not advance
	Lubomir Geraskov	Bulgaria	9.60	9.80	19.40	Did not advance
44	Alfonso Rodríguez	Spain	9.65	9.70	19.35	Did not advance
	Deyan Kolev	Bulgaria	9.60	9.75	19.35	Did not advance
	Kevin Davis	United States	9.50	9.85	19.35	Did not advance
	Marius Toba	Romania	9.55	9.80	19.35	Did not advance
	Patrick Mattioni	France	9.70	9.65	19.35	Did not advance
	Zsolt Horváth	Hungary	9.55	9.80	19.35	Did not advance
50	Wang Chongsheng	China	9.65	9.65	19.30	Did not advance
	Daniel Winkler	West Germany	9.60	9.70	19.30	Did not advance
	Hiroyuki Konishi	Japan	9.60	9.70	19.30	Did not advance
	Lance Ringnald	United States	9.50	9.80	19.30	Did not advance
	Lorne Bobkin	Canada	9.60	9.70	19.30	Did not advance
	Mike Beckmann	West Germany	9.60	9.70	19.30	Did not advance
	Ralph Kern	West Germany	9.70	9.60	19.30	Did not advance
	Tony Piñeda	Mexico	9.65	9.65	19.30	Did not advance
	Ju Yeong-sam	South Korea	9.60	9.70	19.30	Did not advance
59	Andreas Wecker	East Germany	9.70	9.55	19.25	Did not advance
	Bernhard Simmelbauer	West Germany	9.50	9.75	19.25	Did not advance
	Dimitar Taskov	Bulgaria	9.30	9.95	19.25	Did not advance
	Dominick Minicucci Jr.	United States	9.60	9.65	19.25	Did not advance
	Riccardo Trapella	Italy	9.50	9.75	19.25	Did not advance
	Valentin Pîntea	Romania	9.65	9.60	19.25	Did not advance
	Lou Yun	China	9.40	9.85	19.25	Did not advance
66	Wes Suter	United States	9.40	9.80	19.20	Did not advance
67	James Rozon	Canada	9.60	9.55	19.15	Did not advance
	Miguel Ángel Rubio	Spain	9.55	9.60	19.15	Did not advance
69	Frédéric Longuepée	France	9.50	9.60	19.10	Did not advance
	Stéphane Cauterman	France	9.70	9.40	19.10	Did not advance
	Song Yu-jin	South Korea	9.45	9.65	19.10	Did not advance
72	Andrew Morris	Great Britain	9.45	9.60	19.05	Did not advance
	Jürgen Brümmer	West Germany	9.45	9.60	19.05	Did not advance
	Terry Bartlett	Great Britain	9.50	9.55	19.05	Did not advance
75	Vittorio Allievi	Italy	9.35	9.55	18.90	Did not advance
76	Jenő Paprika	Hungary	9.15	9.70	18.85	Did not advance
77	Bruno Cavelti	Switzerland	9.40	9.40	18.80	Did not advance
	Johan Jonasson	Sweden	9.40	9.40	18.80	Did not advance
	Marian Rizan	Romania	8.90	9.90	18.80	Did not advance
80	Kenneth Meredith	Australia	9.15	9.60	18.75	Did not advance
	Thierry Pecqueux	France	9.65	9.10	18.75	Did not advance
82	Alan Nolet	Canada	9.50	9.20	18.70	Did not advance
	Álvaro Montesinos	Spain	9.30	9.40	18.70	Did not advance
84	Chang Chao-chun	Chinese Taipei	9.05	9.55	18.60	Did not advance
	Hélder Pinheiro	Portugal	9.20	9.40	18.60	Did not advance
	Li Ning	China	9.00	9.60	18.60	Did not advance
87	Jože Kolman	Yugoslavia	9.05	9.50	18.55	Did not advance
88	Gil Pinto	Brazil	8.30	9.50	17.80	Did not advance
89	Balázs Tóth	Hungary	9.70	—	9.70	Did not advance

• Official Olympic Report
• www.gymnasticsresults.com