Kohei Uchimura's Reign Ends: New World All-Around Champion Will Be Crowned

Kohei Uchimura's Reign Ends: New World All-Around Champion Will Be Crowned

Kohei Uchimura has won the World Championships all-around title every year since 2009, but that will change in 2017. During the qualifications for the all-around and event finals, Uchimura scratched from the competition after parallel bars.

Oct 2, 2017 by Becca Reed
Kohei Uchimura's Reign Ends: New World All-Around Champion Will Be Crowned
Update from the International Gymnastics Federation:

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Japan's Kohei Uchimura has won the worlds all-around title every year since 2009, but that will change at the 2017 World Championships in Montreal. During the qualifications for the all-around and event finals, Uchimura scratched from the competition after parallel bars with a lower left leg injury.

After a great competition vault, he took a step or two, then bent down and held his left ankle. He limped for a few steps then finally limped off the podium. He completed his parallel bars routine but barely held up the landing, stumbling backwards.

From then until the high bar warm-ups, he was limping around, favoring that left foot and visibly in pain. Multiple members from the Japanese delegation attended to Uchimura while they seemed to figure out if he would continue competing. He was pacing back and forth and trying to hop on his left foot but could not walk normally without limping. 

Uchimura gripped up but ultimately didn't compete on high bar, floor, or pommel horse, taking him out of the running for qualifying to the all-around finals.



After three subdivisions, Cuba's Manrique Larduet has the all-around lead with an 86.699. China's Xiao Ruoteng is in second with an 86.297 and Russia's David Belyavskiy is in third with an 85839.

Considered by many as the greatest male gymnast of all time, Uchimura had won six all-around titles in a row as well as the past two Olympic all-around titles. Besides the highly coveted all-around titles, Uchimura also had an array of other medals including an Olympic gold medal with Japan in 2016.

Uchimura stayed on the floor until the conclusion of the competition, cheering his teammates on. Following the competition, he talked to Japanese reporters in the mixed zone.



This article will be updated once more information becomes available.