They always say fourth place is the worst possible finish, so close to the podium, and yet so far away from actually getting a medal around your neck.

Some of the fourth place finishes at this Olympic Games fit this sentiment perfectly, most notably with Shang Chunsong in the all-around and Elisabeth Seitz on bars. But for others, the teams and athletes with no expectations to medal, who haven’t yet reached the top of the sport’s world order, fourth place is incredible.

For Japan, a fourth place team final finish was the program’s best result in the modern gymnastics era, and the team’s second-highest finish in history after they won the bronze medal in 1964. Never a powerhouse in gymnastics, the women missed out completely on qualifying a team in 2004, following that up with fifth place in 2008 and then eighth place in 2012.

This quad, the Japanese women have had one of their most talented groups of gymnasts ever with tons of depth reaching far beyond the top five who ended up making this team. In fact, even though the top Japanese gymnasts aren’t quite as polished as the top Russian or Chinese gymnasts, if you had to put a Japanese C or D team up against a Russian or Chinese C or D team, the Japanese team would likely win. At the All-Japan Championships in April, the first stop in Japan’s annual elite season, some 70 gymnasts competed with more than half of them capable of reaching the individual Olympic qualifying standard, and like the U.S., Japan also supports collegiate-level competition, with universities like Chukyo, Nippon Sport Science, Tsukuba, and Kokushikan (among others) all boasting gymnastics clubs and programs.

While long-storied programs like Romania are struggling to field teams because of the “Olympics or bust” attitude that causes 15-year-olds to give up when they realize the goal might not be possible, Japan has been fostering a competitive spirit that goes beyond the elusive Olympic dream. It’s why they’ve rocketed from no Games in 2004 to fourth place just 12 years later, and it’s why their women’s program is the future while older programs begin to crumble.

But more than the Japanese getting things right on the administrative side, the women who made up this 2016 team deserve all the credit in the world for turning Japan’s goals into reality. Headlined by 2012 Olympian Asuka Teramoto, the women were nearly error-free in the team competition, coming in with a standout qualifications performance that they managed to improve on for the finals.

In qualifications, the team was able to drop a fall from Teramoto on her double turn on beam and a messy routine from the young Sae Miyakawa on floor, the strongest events for both to keep them sadly out of the respective finals. A few nerves kicked in otherwise, especially on beam, but for the most part the women showed a great balance across the four events, and the three all-arounders — Teramoto, Mai Murakami, and Aiko Sugihara — finished in the top 16, an overall individual finish second to only the United States (Sugihara, 16th with a 56.866, was sadly out of the final due to the two-per-country rule).

A team is only as strong as its weakest link, and there were zero weak links here, with the three all-arounders supported by the two incredible specialists, with Miyakawa performing on vault and floor while Yuki Uchiyama filled in on bars and beam.

I have to say, Uchiyama was a huge surprise here. The 18-year-old wasn’t a standout in her first year as a senior in 2014 due to injuries, and while she won the silver all-around medal at nationals last year to ensure a spot on the worlds team, her performances began to lose steam leading up to Glasgow, and she found herself replaced by second alternate Murakami.

In 2016, she was hit or miss in competition, with a few good results, though her fourth-place finish at the NHK Trophy — which combined results with the national championships from a month earlier — was largely due to others simply having more mistakes than she did, putting her in a good position to take advantage of them even if she wasn’t really “the best.” Still, in a weak bars field, she was doing her best work on that event, getting the second-best score at nationals and the top on the event at NHK, basically getting her a team spot by default.

Between Japan’s domestic season and the Olympic Games, Uchiyama underwent a transformation that is almost impossible to understand. Her bars work went from good to outstanding, getting a 14.8 in qualifications and then a 15.0 in the team final, where she showed lovely inbar work and a solid full-in dismount before exploding into a huge smile and celebrating with her teammates. It was an awesome Games for Uchiyama, and I hope this won’t be the last we see of her.

The women overall did some of their best work of the team final on bars, where the young Sugihara — another quiet hero of the Games for Japan with no individual glory or big standout events but nothing but solid routines across the board — got a 14.6 while Teramoto put up a 14.866, and the team had some great scores on vault, where they boasted two Rudis in addition to Murakami’s DTY.

While beam and floor generally aren’t as high-scoring for this team, they still saw hit routines from every competitor. Miyakawa continued to struggle a bit with the endurance to carry off her massively difficult passes — a full-twisting double layout, punch front layout to double front, double double, and double layout — but didn’t have any major problems, and still managed a 13.908.

The all-around final saw Teramoto finish eighth after a super solid day, earning a 57.965 in what ended up being a terrific field (she and seven others finished within about a point of the podium). Murakami, who defeated Teramoto to win gold at nationals, had a few minor mistakes, but still managed to pull off 14th place with a 56.665, not bad given the overall strength of the all-arounders in Rio.

Murakami was the only Japanese woman to reach the apparatus finals, and she had one of her best floor routines of the Games on the last day of competition, earning a 14.533 to place seventh. She did have the misfortune to go up first, which is always a tricky place to start because you become the measure by which the subsequent routines are judged.

She again had some minor issues, with the most glaring being a hop on her double double and a step forward on her shortly-landed full-twisting double layout, a performance similar to most everyone else who finished near her. Like the all-around, so many of these routines were so close, it was difficult to accurately rank them. Perhaps the judges were a little stingy with Murakami’s faults in relation to others in the final, but I still don’t think it was going to end up on the podium, so no matter.

As a team, Japan earned an impressive 174.371, a score that would’ve made them the bronze medalists in Glasgow last year for comparison, and an eight-point improvement on their last-place finish in 2012. In addition to the numbers, I loved the fantastic camaraderie among the girls, who screamed and yelled and celebrated every stuck landing and hit routine like this was an NCAA meet and not the Olympic Games. They were a joy to watch and seemed to love every second of being at the Games.

Even though the Japanese women left Rio without any medals, the improvements made speak volumes. They did leave these Games having made a huge impression on the judges and other teams as one to watch in the next few years, especially as the younger gymnasts like Sugihara, Miyakawa, and Uchiyama will continue to improve with this experience under their belts. Not only does Japan have a solid foundation going forward thanks to this squad (as well as equally strong alternates Natsumi Sasada and Marina Kawasaki), but they will also add a few incredible juniors into the mix in the coming years.

Fourth place was great for Japan in 2016, but it’s only going to get better from here. In 2020, when their nation will host the Olympic Games in Tokyo, the Japanese women will absolutely be in the mix for a team medal.

Article by Lauren Hopkins