He became the first British gymnast in 108 years to medal in the men’s all-around competition after finishing third on Wednesday.
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Ukrainian Oleg Verniaiev notched up a score of 14.8 which was enough for silver. Doing six pieces right is a very tough job.
Uchimura’s victory marked the first time in 44 years a gymnast had won all around gold at two consecutive Games, though he said he expected a new crop of younger gymnasts, led by Verniaiev, to surpass him soon.
“I really have no confidence that I will be able to beat Oleg (in the future)”, Uchimura said. Britain’s Max Whitlock won bronze in the Rio Olympic Arena.
‘I never knew where I was placing at all. I thought if I just give my performance, I’ll get the result. “We are very strong, we’re such a big team, and hopefully we can go back to the village and everyone be proud of our achievements”. Ryohei Kato finished in 11th place.
“Other Japanese gymnasts have four years so I think they can do it”. The event is limited to two athletes per country and Leyva only made the U.S. Olympic team as an injury replacement for John Orozco.
“It went down to the last five or six routines and Max went up first, set the bar and had to sit and wait”.
“I was so close to gold. but I’m quite happy I managed to make Kohei very, very nervous”, quipped the Ukrainian. He had not trained for a more hard routine.
On the vault his landing was slightly ungainly after a tricky triple “Yurchenko” but he only received a slight deduction and was second overall at halfway, sandwiched between Verniaiev and Uchimura.
The 27 year old Japanese was second behind Vernyayev qualification after falling off the high bar, but still considered as the favorite to win in the final.
Uchimura showed his best on the last apparatus of high bar with a routine of 7.100 difficulty in great quality, scoring 15.800 points.
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“After the parallel bars I didn’t even see the score”. He believed he had sealed it with his solid high bar routine but 19-time World Championships medallist Uchimura was smiled on by the judges and overtook him at the death.
