Gymnastics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's horizontal bar

This was the 23rd 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). Five of the eight finalists from 2008 returned: gold medalist Zou Kai of China, silver medalist Jonathan Horton of the United States, bronze medalist (and 2004 finalist) Fabian Hambüchen of Germany, seventh-place finisher Epke Zonderland of the Netherlands, and eighth-place finisher Yann Cucherat of France. Zou had won the 2009 and 2011 world championships, with his countryman Zhang Chenglong winning in 2010. Zonderland was the runner-up in 2009 and 2010, finishing fifth in 2011. Hambüchen was third in 2010, fourth in 2011.[2]

Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, and Slovakia each made their debut in the men's horizontal bar. The United States made its 21st appearance, most of any nation; the Americans had missed only the inaugural 1896 event and the boycotted 1980 Games.

Qualification for the men's artistic gymnastics in 2008 was based primarily on the 2011 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. The top 8 teams at the world championships could send a full team of 5 gymnasts to the Olympics. The next 8 teams (#9 through #16) competed in the 2012 Gymnastics Olympic Test Event, with the top 4 of those teams also qualifying a team of 5 gymnasts for the Olympics. The individual apparatus medalists from the World Championships also qualified, if their nation had not already qualified a team. The FIG Executive Board made invitational selections to ensure host country and continental representation and the Tripartite Commission made an invitation. The quota of 98 gymnasts was then filled through the individual all-around rankings at the Test Event, with each nation able to qualify only one gymnast in that manner (though this one gymnast could be added to the world championship apparatus medalists—for example, Brazil qualified Diego Hypólito as bronze medalist in the floor, Arthur Nabarrete Zanetti as silver medalist in the rings, and Sérgio Sasaki through the Test Event).

The top eight qualifiers in the qualification phase (limit two per NOC) advanced to the apparatus final. Qualification scores were then erased, with only final round scores counting.[3]

Scoring in artistic gymnastics under the Code of Points is based on two separate scores that are then combined in order to come to the final score. The A score measures the difficulty of each element (and combinations of elements) within the routine, while the B score evaluates the performance, ie, the "execution, composition and artistry" of the routine.

North Greenwich Arena

All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1)