Kohei Uchimura comfortably retained his all-around title at the world gymnastics championships in Rotterdam on Friday.
Japanese gymnast overcomes shoulder injury in Rotterdam
Kohei Uchimura comfortably retained his all-around title at the world gymnastics championships in Rotterdam on Friday.
Despite suffering an inflamed left shoulder, the Japanese gymnast gave a commanding performance with six consistently good scores to win with 92.331 points.
The 21-year-old's margin over the silver medallist, Germany's Philipp Boy, was a massive 2.283, with Jonathan Horton of the United States 2.467 behind for bronze.
British pair Dan Purvis and Sam Hunter both produced impressive displays to finish fifth and ninth respectively.
Purvis said afterwards: "It's been an awesome week. I wasn't sure what to expect going into the final, but I thought if I just went clean I would be okay and when I saw I had come in fifth I was amazed."
Uchimura overcame his injury to produce the sort of graceful performance that gave him the all-around silver at the Beijing Olympics and gold at the world championships in London last year.
He opened up a half-point margin in the opening floor event, and withstood the strain on his shoulder muscles to similarly dominate the pommel horse.
Uchimura's shoulder meant he had to skip the rings during Thursday's team event, when Japan took silver behind China.
However, 24 hours later, he gave a near-flawless performance in the discipline to increase his lead over everyone except Horton, who got the best ring marks.
Precision
Uchimura then executed the vault with trademark precision and height and with the race for gold as good as over by that stage, he could even afford a sloppy landing on his parallel bar routine.
Furthermore, he also decided against a conservative approach on the last event, the high bar, which would have protected his lead.
With last year's silver medallist Daniel Keatings out with a torn knee ligament and 2007 runner-up Fabian Hambuechen suffering an Achilles injury, Boy claimed a surprise silver.
Horton had a strong finish on the parallel bars and high bar to take bronze, although forward momentum on his landing in the vault may have cost him the second step on the podium.
Uchimura has also qualified for two apparatus finals this weekend.
Later, Russia's Aliya Mustafina continued her gold medal rush when she won the women's all-around title.
The 16-year-old, who helped her country win their first ever women's team title on Wednesday night, finished with 61.032 points ahead of China's Jiang Yuyan (59.998) with American Rebecca Bross (58.966) taking bronze.
Hannah Whelan finished in 16th place for Britain, six places ahead of team-mate Nicole Hibbert.
