Click on the video player above at 2 p.m. ET to watch live coverage of the men’s team final at the artistic gymnastics world championships in Glasgow, Scotland.
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It was a sixth world title for Japan who had won five consecutive men’s team titles from 1962.
Of the GB team, Whitlock was the standout performer – and the only member to compete on all six pieces of apparatus.
In a competition riddled with errors but overflowing with heart-pumping drama, Japan survived three falls – including one by Uchimura in the final performance of the day on the horizontal bar – to land their first world team title in 37 years.
“I would have liked to have had a ideal competition, so I feel bad about my fall on High Bar”, said Uchimura.
Japan’s six-man team of Uchimura, Tanaka, Kenzo Shirai, Ryohei Kato, Naoto Hayasaka and Kazume Kaya had led all the way in a final that had gotten underway amid great pomp in a party atmosphere with flame jets and traditional Scottish dancers in Glasgow. Going first at pommel horse, the Chinese were sloppy.
Japan held their lead on the vault and parallel bars despite Tanaka coming unstuck, before also falling from the high bar.
Britain went into the final rotation yesterday in the hunt for a bronze, but stellar floor work from Purvis and Max Whitlock meant they leapfrogged China into silver and almost stole gold from Japan.
“I’m very happy to win the team gold”, Uchimura told BBC Sport. A few years ago we were nowhere near China or Japan and to come here and get the silver medal is unbelievable.
“When I did the release skill, the timing was such that the crowd cheered just as I was trying to catch the bar”, said Uchimura.
“We want to do as well as we can in the team final. We won bronze in the (2012) Olympics and were fourth past year, but the potential is there, and it depends what we do on the day to get one of those medal places”.
“It shows Japan are strong ahead of the Rio Olympics next year where we will be targeting the gold medal”. Britain shocked the field by winning the silver with 270.345 points, their first world championships medal in history.
But the team of Purvis, Whitlock, Wilson, Smith, Brinn Bevan and Kristian Thomas never gave up and powered through to an outstanding result.
It looked like it might not happen for the Brits at Glasgow’s SSE Hydro heading into the closing stages, but mistakes from the United States of America and China opened the door for a grandstand finish.
With one apparatus left, Japan led the US by nearly two whole points, with China and Great Britain both within striking distance of the Americans.
“And when push comes to shove a lot of time it’s down to who holds their nerve and there’s no other way to say it – we did the job”.
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But they struggled on floor, with Ruggeri and Donnell Whittenburg each stepping out of bounds, while Uchimura helped extend Japan’s lead with a handsome parallel bars routine.
