Kohei Uchimura: "Simone Biles is beyond amazing"
Three-time Olympic gymnastics champion "King" Kohei praises queen of gymnastics, Simone Biles
Artistic Gymnastics
It was the gymnastics equivalent of a royal proclamation.
The king of gymnastics – six-time World all-around champion and back-to-back Olympic all-around champion Kohei Uchimura – took to Twitter Sunday to praise his royal counterpart, queen of gymnastics Simone Biles who just won the U.S. Classic in Louisville.
“Simone is beyond amazing,” Uchimura said in his quote tweet of Olympic Channel’s video showing the 22-year-old American’s new triple-twisting, double back tumbling pass on the floor exercise.
Uchimura is no slouch himself on the floor where he is a former world champion in the event and the 2012 Olympic silver medallist. He is quite capable of tumbling the triple-double himself, having used it in competition previously.
But what exactly caught the attention of the arguably best men’s gymnast in history?
“The amazingness of her overall performance stands out,” he said. “But as an experienced gymnast, I am amazed by the smoothness of transition from the first flip to the second.”
Triple Olympic champions: they’re just like us.
“By thinking that way, I am a gymnastics freak,” he closed with.
The tweet comes as Uchimura struggles to find his form with the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games almost exactly a year away. In June, the Japanese Gymnastics Federation announced their teams for October’s World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, would not include the 21-time world medallist.
Though the 30-year-old did help his Japanese team to the bronze medal at last year’s worlds before taking a silver medal in the horizontal bar final, his competitive seasons post-Rio have been marred by injury. In 2017, a short landing during qualifications at the worlds forced him to withdraw. A similar injury to his ankle in 2018 limited him to four events.
Despite the set backs, the Japanese superstar remains focused on what may be his final goal in gymnastics: competing at a home Olympics.
"After Rio, I only remember about injuries. I don’t have many good memories, but I’m coming back little by little," Uchimura said recently at a press event. "The past three years was all for that (comeback).”