Paris 2024 Gymnastics: All results, as Oka Shinnosuke strikes surprise gold in men's all-around final
Japan's domination of the men's artistic gymnastics all-around continued Wednesday (31 July) at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
20-year-old newcomer Oka Shinnosuke, who is competing in his first major senior championships here, stunned pre-event favourites 2021 world all-around champion Zhang Boheng of the People's Republic of China and Tokyo 2020 all-around champion Hashimoto Daiki to give his nation a fourth-straight win in the event.
The 2019 world junior champion Oka scored 86.832 for gold with Zhang's 86.599 taking silver. 2017 world champion Xiao Ruoteng of China rounded out the podium with a 86.364.
Winner of the past two world titles, Hashimoto was a shocking sixth some 2.234 back of Oka.
Hashimoto's win three years ago came on the back of the legendary Uchimura Kohei's victories at London 2012 and Rio 2016.
The opening rotation claimed several of the top contenders including Zhang, the highest scorer from the preliminary round, who came up short on his three-and-a-half twist to punch front half on the floor exercise and landed on his head.
He scored just 13.233, down more than a point from qualifying. Zhang sat 20th after one event.
The trials and tribulations for the field continued a rotation later as Hashimoto came off the pommel horse on a relatively simple swing to handstand (scissor) element for a 12.966.
He was 15th after two apparatus with Zhang beginning to mount his comeback, moving to 16th after a 14.333 on the horse.
Things calmed down in the third rotation with the top group maintaining status quo as all six of the top qualifiers delivered solid efforts on the still rings.
Zhang’s comeback continued to seem like a possibility as his 14.600 score lifted him to within striking distance of the podium. He sat fifth at the midway point.
There was a change in the leaderboard after four events with Ukraine’s Oleg Verniaiev, the 2016 Olympic all-around silver medallist, and reigning world all-around silver medallist Illia Kovtun using parallel bars scores of a15.000 and 15.400, respectively, to sit one-two.
Oka, who led after three apparatus, dropped to fourth as Xiao sat third after a clean Kasamatsu double-full netted him a 14.833.
Zhang continued to hang near the top in sixth, heading into his two best events.
Oka, 15.100; Xiao, 14.766; and Zhang, 15.300; used brilliant parallel bars routines to take the top three spots, respectively, heading into the final rotation. The trio was separated by less than four tenths of a point.
Zhang had a nervous warm-up, falling to his stomach on a layout Tkatchev in the final warm-up for the horizontal bar.
In competition, Oka delivered a thrilling effort to put the pressure on Zhang who nickeled and dimed his way to a 14.633, just shy of the mark he needed for gold.
Embraced by his teammate Hashimoto, the duo ran to the floor exercise podium to celebrate, swarmed by photographers and cameras.