BEIJING - Before he starts any gymnastics routine in competition, Jonathan Horton says a little prayer. Tuesday night's was a simple one.

"Please don't let me die," Horton said.

He was going onto the horizontal bar and trying a "crazy" routine (his description) that he had performed, well, never. Not in practice or in competition. Having broken his nose on the bar a few months ago, Horton knew all too well how much of a risk he was taking.

The reward? Horton won a silver medal, second to China's Zou Kai, capping a surprisingly good Olympics for a U.S. men's team that lost stars Paul and Morgan Hamm to injuries just before the Games.

"If I did the routine I did in team" competition, Horton said, "and I did it perfectly, I would have no chance to medal. If I tried this, I might fall. But if I could do this, I could win a medal. I figured it was go big or go home."

Over two days, Horton and coach Mark Williams added a couple of maneuvers to increase his all-important start value by 0.5 points - an enormous change. The main attraction was a release move called the Cassina, in honor of Italy's Igor Cassina, who first performed it in competition.

Cassina - the man, not the move - finished fourth. So Horton beat Cassina with a Cassina.

"I hadn't thought about that," Horton said. "That's pretty cool."

Williams said Horton practiced the new routine in segments, never putting it all together until the competition. Other coaches noticed and would steal glimpses. A kind of arms race ensued, with competitors trying to trick up their routines in order to have a shot at a medal.

"Jon's a riverboat gambler," Williams said. "He just felt like, 'I'm going for it.”'

This is, after all, the grown-up version of the toddler who climbed a pole in the middle of his local Target store. All the way to the ceiling. A manager had to coax him to slide back down.

Horton said that after he regained the bar off his first release, he thought, "This is easy." He certainly made it look that way. The only drawback, it turned out, was the demanding routine left him a little more tired than usual for his dismount.

He hit the mat in good shape, then took one little step forward.

"If I stick that landing," Horton said, "I'm wearing a different color medal right now."

Horton was more than happy with silver. At 22, he's hoping to come back and anchor the U.S. men's team in London in 2012. That group could include 2008 bronze medalists Justin Spring and Alexander Artemev, as well as 2008 national champion David Sender.