LONDON (GBR), FIG Office, August 1, 2012: For Kohei Uchimura, the long wait ended at North Greenwich Arena on Wednesday evening when he finally clasped his hands on the Olympic Gold medal that so many in the Artistic Gymnastics community had believed was his destiny.
The Silver medallist in the Men’s Individual All-around event at Beijing 2008, Uchimura had since won three successive World Championships as well as the acclaim of fellow gymnasts the world over. But it was Olympic glory that the Japanese craved more than anything and it felt like nothing else in the world, he admitted, after topping the field with a score of 92.690, ahead of fellow medallists Marcel Nguyen of Germany (91.031) and USA’s Danell Leyva (90.698).
"I've been aiming for this for a long time and now I have achieved it. It's a dream,” he said. "I have been World Champion in the All-around three times in a row, but this is a different feeling. The Olympics are only once every four years so I have been waiting for this moment.”
It seemed ironic that Uchimura should start the final on Pommel Horse. It was one of two apparatuses on which he had fallen when qualifying in ninth place; moreover, it was his dismount from thepommel horse in Monday’s Men’s Team Final that was at the centre of the scoring appeal that eventually led to Japan leapfrogging Ukraine and Britain to claim Silver.
“That was first time I’d started on the Pommel Horse in the last four years so I was wondering what to do at the very beginning,” admitted Uchimura. As it was he scored 15.066 with a confident routine and by the third rotation had moved out in front thanks to a superb Vault that earned 16.266 points.
Uchimura, who reduced the difficulty of his Horizontal Bar routine, said he had been confident he had “a good floor routine to finish on” and so it proved. Although he touched his hands to the floor in a tumbling element, he stepped off the floor with a smile, knowing the Gold was his as Japanese flags were waved around the arena. “I am so grateful, that is all I can say – it was not my ability but also because of all the support I received,” said the 23-year.old, Japan’s first Olympic All-around Champion since Koji Gushiken in 1984.
Uchimura added that he had taken extra motivation from the sight of injured team-mate Koji Yamamuro in his bed that morning. “I was trying to do my best for him as well,” said the champion, and the same went for Yamamuro’s replacement, Kazuhito Tanaka, who nearly earned a surprise Silver medal but came off the pommel horse in his final routine, having entered the last rotation in second place.
“Even though I fell I didn't give up on my last routine; I wanted to be brave for my team-mate Yamamuro,” said Tanaka, who still has a medal chance on Parallel Bars.
As it was, there was still a surprise Silver medallist in the shape of German gymnast Marcel Nguyen. “I am very surprised it worked so well for me today,” he said. “I didn’t expect to get a Silver medal and be sitting in a press conference.”
Nguyen, Germany’s first medallist in the event since 1936, started slowly with a score of 13.666 on Pommel Horse but subsequently earned the day’s highest score on Rings (15.366) and joint-highest on Parallel Bars (15.833) with Leyva. “I stayed up on each apparatus,” he said. “After the Pommel Horse I was quite far behind but managed to catch up.”
He clinched his Silver after showing admirable composure on his Floor routine – the very last of the competition. With the crowd roaring in appreciation of Leyva’s effort on Horizontal Bar, the elegant German kept his focus. “I heard it but it didn’t bother me, I just carried on with my routine,” said Nyugen, who collected 15.300 points to secure his medal.
Like Nyugen, Bronze medallist Leyva also mounted an impressive recovery having been placed joint-17th after three rotations. As in the Men’s Team Final, the Pommel Horse seemed to have proved his nemesis as he struggled on his handstand dismount in the second rotation. "I had almost written myself off but I thought I had to relax and put my faith in myself, my training and my coaches," said the American, who was first in qualifying.
“I didn’t do the pommel routine I wanted to do but I channeled that into positive energy, I kept fighting and finished really strong. I am really happy with the way I finished.”
With his coach and stepfather Yin Alvarez hopping about like a jack-in-the-box on the sidelines, Leyva delivered excellent routines on Vault, Parallel Bars and Horizontal Bar. With the last of the three, he performed a risky routine that earned the top score (15.700) on that apparatus and ensured his place on the podium, 0.266 points ahead of Ukraine’s Mykola Kuksenkov.
Levya spoke about his wish to one day match Uchimura’s achievement but that could prove easier said than done, with the new champion already looking ahead to the next Olympics. “Rio is a vision I have in mind,” said Uchimura. “I want to challenge myself to the limit."
Results
