Turns out the “Superman” of Gymnastics is a mortal after all.
With a single six event performance, reigning Olympic champion Kohei Uchimura confirmed his status as both human being and top gymnast in the world on the first day of Men’s qualification Sunday in Glasgow.
After a successful start to the competition on Vault, Parallel Bars and High Bar, Uchimura had a long wait to perform on Floor Exercise while the judges deliberated over a teammate’s score. Though his routine began well, the gymnast many consider the greatest ever crashed a tumbling pass in the middle of his exercise and left the mat rubbing his neck and looking perturbed.
“I waited a long time and my body cooled down,” explained Uchimura, whose extensive gold medal collection includes a World title on Floor from 2011. “So I couldn’t move as I wanted to. At the beginning of the exercise it was fine, but at the end, I couldn’t perform as I had wished.”
The storm passed quickly. After Floor, Uchimura moved on to the Pommel Horse, where he delivered a routine up to his usual standard. On Still Rings, an event not considered one of his many strengths, he still posted the highest score of any Japanese gymnast. Crisis? What crisis?
The fall on Floor was Uchimura’s most blatant error in international competition since the 2012 Olympic Games. Small problems in London three years ago didn’t keep him from winning the big Olympic prize, and his fall Sunday didn’t keep him from cumulating the highest score of any athlete over all six events with 90.654 points.
“Now, I have a different mindset when I go into competitions,” Uchimura explained. “I calculate what I need to do, how much I need to do. With the experience I have, I know the amount of strength I need in order to succeed in competition.”
If he can repeat his performance in the Men’s All-around final Friday night, Uchimura is likely to win an unprecedented sixth consecutive World All-around title. Still, asked whether he’d rather have that or team gold for Japan, Uchimura didn’t hesitate in confirming the latter.
Having finished second to China at the past four World Championships, Japan is hypermotivated to win one for themselves this year. With one day of Men’s qualification still to come, the Japanese hold a nearly two point lead over China, good for morale perhaps but not a significant margin. In addition, scores from qualifications do not carry over to Wednesday’s team final, meaning both nations will start with clean slates.
“It’s hard to say what we need to do to beat the Chinese in the team competition, because it’s never happened to me,” Uchimura said. “If we knew what we needed to do, we would do it.”
Competition in Glasgow continues Monday with the final day of Men’s qualification.
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