LONDON (AP) ― Their closest rivals were still on the floor competing when the Chinese whipped out five big gold stars and held them up in the shape of their flag.

Why wait?

The Chinese won their second straight Olympic title in men’s gymnastics and third in four games in a rout Monday, making fools of everyone who wrote them off after a dismal performance in qualifying.

“We don’t have any faults. That’s our secret to beat the Japanese and to beat everyone,” Zhang Chenglong said. “In preliminaries, we had a little bit of faults. But tonight was completely perfect.”

Well, almost.

It took five minutes and a video review to sort out the silver and bronze medalists after Japan questioned the score of three-time world champion Kohei Uchimura on pommel horse, the last routine. Japan jumped from fourth to second after judges revised Uchimura’s score, bumping Britain down to bronze and Ukraine off the medals podium.

It was the British men’s first team medal in a century, and it set off raucous celebrations at the O2 Arena. Even Princes William and Harry joined in.

“To win a medal in your home games, I’ll take that any day,” Kristian Thomas said. “We never actually had the silver in our hands, so there’s no real disappointment.”

Tell that to the Japanese, who were bested by the Chinese yet again. Japan was the runner-up to China in Beijing, as well as at the last four world championships.