Benoît Caranobe is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 gymnast

Gymnastics

Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...

 who won a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics

2008 Summer Olympics

The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...

. Caranobe was the first Frenchman to medal in the Individual All-Around competition since Marco Torrès won silver and Jean Gounot

Jean Gounot

Jean Gounot was a French gymnast and Olympic medalist.He competed at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, where he received a bronze medal in all-round individual....

 won bronze in said event at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics

1920 Summer Olympics

The 1920 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the VII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event in 1920 in Antwerp, Belgium....

.

2004 Athens Olympics

In his first Olympic appearance, Benoît Caranobe placed 19th in the men's all around competition and helped the French men's team to a 9th place finish in the team qualification, though not enough to make the team finals.

2008 Beijing Olympics

Caranobe qualified to the all around finals in tenth place, 2.950 points behind the leader Yang Wei

Yang Wei (gymnast)

Yang Wei is a male gymnast from China.-Career:Yang Wei won the silver medal in the individual all-around competition and won the gold in the team event at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney....

. In the all-around finals, Caranobe finished in third place, ahead of medal favorites Hiroyuki Tomita

Hiroyuki Tomita

Hiroyuki Tomita is a Japanese gymnast. Tomita has three Olympic medals from the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.-Early life:...

, Fabian Hambüchen

Fabian Hambüchen

Fabian Hambüchen is a German gymnast. He lives in Wetzlar.Hambüchen was the youngest German athlete at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and finished 7th in the Horizontal bar and 8th in the team competition. So far in his career, he has won five medals at World Championships and six at European...

, and Yang Tae-Young. His third place finish is particularly surprising given that Benoît had placed only third at the French National Gymnastics championships.

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