Team Japan's gymnasts may have been missing their captain and ace at their Olympics debut in Paris on Sunday but they put in a solid performance that qualified them for the team final.

The teenage athletes' Olympics journey had got off to an inauspicious start after 19-year-old captain Shoko Miyata was sent home just days before the Games for smoking in violation of the team's code of conduct.

Kohane Ushioku, the oldest on the team and less than a month shy of her 20th birthday, said she did her best to make sure the hole Miyata left did not bring down the mood.