Uchimura was superb in Rotterdam, with the
combination of tremendous difficulty, supreme consistency and an extraordinary elegance of performance. Moreover, Uchimura, unlike his closest competitors, does not have a weak event.
Uchimura’s biggest advantage may be his execution. He keeps his legs and feet together from the
springboard to the landing mat on vault, kicks out
from every tumbling pass on floor, and maintains
form during the tap and flight elements on high bar.
These are a just few areas of his perhaps under-appreciated level of performance. By gymnastics
standards, Uchimura is simply a 21-year-old
Superman, the guy who can do it all.
From the start of the competition it was obvious
that many of the gymnasts felt fatigued, having
competed less than 24 hours earlier in the team
Less than 24 hours after hitting six routines
that led Germany to the team bronze, Philipp
Boy (left & below) went six-for-six in the all-around to take the silver. American Jonathan
Horton (opp. right) edged Ukraine’s Nikolai
Kuksenkov (opp. left) for the bronze by .033.
“It was true insanity,
the pressure I felt,”
Boy said.
