ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — Kohei Uchimura overcame searing shoulder pain to retain his all-around title Friday, and 16-year old Aliya Mustafina of Russia won the women’s event for her second gold medal at the World Gymnastics Championships.Uchimura gave a command performance with six consistently good scores to win the title with 92.331 points for a huge 2.283 margin over Philipp Boy of Germany. Jonathan Horton of the United States won the bronze, 2.467 behind, and was awed by Uchimura’s prowess.“A bum shoulder, no shoulder, no arms,” Horton said. “The guy is ridiculous. Uchimura — he is a machine.”Uchimura, a Nagasaki native, displayed the same grace that gave him all-around silver at the Beijing Olympics and gold at the world championships in London last year. This time, pain and injury proved no deterrent in the competition that crowns the world’s greatest gymnast.”It is the adrenaline,” he said through a translator.
Japan’s other entry in the all-around final, Koji Uematsu, finished eighth with a total of 88.398.Uchimura had become the youngest world champion from Japan at the age of 20 in London last year.He is the fourth Japanese gymnast to have won the men’s all-around title after Eizo Kenmotsu in 1970, Shigeru Kasamatsu in 1974 and Hiroyuki Tomita in 2005.Tomita, who retired after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, just came up short with a silver in 2006. He said that defending the all-around title has become harder than ever.
“It’s tough mentally with expectations so high from everyone,” the 29-year-old Tomita said. “The technical level has gone up and it’s so demanding physically. . .”Only two other gymnasts have won back-to-back titles. Petar Sumi did it in 1922 and 1926 for Yugoslavia, and China’s Yang Wei accomplished the feat in 2006-07.Uchimura on Thursday won a silver in the men’s team event as Japan took second to China.
Mustafina won with aplomb after leading Russia to the team title earlier in the week. She finished with 61.023 points, beating China’s Jiang Yuyan by 1.034. American Rebecca Bross took the bronze with 58.966.Uchimura has already led Japan to the team silver medal behind China on Thursday. He has also qualified for two apparatus finals this weekend.”The first thing I want now is rest,” he said after 11 apparatus performances in just over 24 hours.Uchimura started to dominate from the opening floor event, flying higher and landing steadier and softer than anybody else to open up a huge half-point margin.If he was going to show some weakness, it was going to be on the third event, the rings. Team officials even added more skin-colored tape to his left shoulder, knowing it was the toughest test of his injury.
“I felt some tightness after the horse and they took care of that,” he said.
He carried on with another near-flawless performance, swinging freely before hanging dead-still in a skip of a beat. When he nailed his landing, he had yet again increased his lead over everyone else in the top group — except Horton, who got the best ring marks -Japantimes
