KRISTIAN Thomas failed in his bid for more Olympic glory after finishing eighth in the vault final.

The 23-year-old Halesowen ace looked set to challenge strongly after a stunning first vault.

But a mistake while trying to land his second saw him drop down the field and out of contention.

Korea’s Hak Seon Yang took gold, with Russia’s Denis Ablyazin getting silver and Ukraine’s Igor Radivilov the bronze.

Yang was the bookies favourite heading into the competition and certainly justified the tag with two stunning vaults to pip Ablyazin in a high-quality final at the North Greenwich Arena.

Thomas, who was cheered loudly by the partisan home crowd, certainly left his mark with a stunning first vault which scored 16.366 and set expectations soaring.

But as has been demonstrated so often in the past week of competition, the vault is a high-risk, high-reward routine where even the smallest of errors can prove costly.

On his second vault, Thomas failed to quite make the final rotation and despite landed feet first, ended up sitting down on the crash mat.

That dragged his average score down to 15.533, which was never going to be enough to challenge the likes of Yang, who finished with an average of 16.533.

While today will now doubt be disappointing for Thomas, he can nevertheless look back on an exceptional Olympics where he has helped launch British gymnastics onto the world stage.