Japan's Kohei Uchimura won a record third straight men's all-around title at the world gymnastics championships in Tokyo Friday, prompting his nearest rival to call him an unbeatable "machine." The 22-year-old collected 93.631 points, leading the elite group of top qualifiers in five of the six events.
European champion Philipp Boy of Germany fought back from sixth place in the penultimate rotation to end 3.101 behind at 90.530 and lift the silver medal for a second straight time. Another Japanese Koji Yamamuro finished third at 90.255 for his first world individual medal.
"I could perform each and every event with care and I could make firm landings. I feel happy about that," said Uchimura, who has been unbeatable as an all-arounder since he finished second at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. "I could hear bigger applause than I did at the Olympics. I was surprised at such an awful sound that I thought there was an earthquake or something," he quipped.
Boy, 24, said, "Uchimura is really a kind of machine. It's a dream to beat him at the moment." "I had to fight from sixth to silver. It's a perfect result for me." Uchimura is the first male or female gymnast to win the all-around title three times in a row at the world championships. Petar Sumi won in 1922 and 1926 for Yugoslavia, and China's Yang Wei followed him in 2006 and 2007.
Uchimura dominated his favourite floor exercise, the opening event for his group, as he landed firmly on his feet after each aerial move to score 15.566 points. He topped the board after his second event, the pommel horse, and then on the rings, Uchimura dazzled again with a powerful sequence and a solid landing to break away further from the rest of his group.
Uchimura was the last to perform on the bar with daring swings and aerial moves wowing a capacity crowd of some 8,000 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium. He is due to compete in five individual event finals at the weekend to chase his first-ever world apparatus title. "I'm a little tired but I will pretend not to be because I'm the champion."
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