Individual All-Around, Men

Despite finishing second to Oleh Verniaiev of Ukraine in qualifying, Japan’s Kohei Uchimura was favourite to win the all-round title because he had won all six world titles since winning silver in Beijing in 2008 and was the reigning Olympic Champion. The surprise leader after the opening round was Britain’s Max Whitlock after a fine performance on the pommel horse that earned him 15.875. No Briton had won an individual all-round medal since Walter Tysall took silver in 1908. Uchimura was breathing down Whitlock’s neck, with 2013 World Championship silver medallist Ryohei Kato in third.

Another of the fancied gymnasts was Cuban’s 2015 world silver medallist Manrique Larduet, but a fall during the vault forced him to retire injured, as the lead changed hands with Uchimara taking top spot from Whitlock with Verniaiev moving into third. A great performance by the Ukrainian on the rings put him top of the leader board at the half-way stage, with Whitlock still hanging on to that silver medal position, but he dropped to third after the fourth rotation as the Japanese favourite moved into second.

Verniaiev cemented his position as leader in the fifth round with a 16.1 from an outstanding performance on the parallel bars and, going into the final round, the Ukrainian led the defending champion with 77.466 points to 76.565, with Whitlock third on 75.441.The Briton posted a 15.2 on the floor and then had to wait to see if he would be overtaken for that elusive medal by the Russian David Belyavsky, or the Chinese pair or Deng Shudi and Lin Chaopan. Lin’s floor exercise tally was less than Whitlock’s, as was Deng’s performance on the horizontal bar and, agonisingly for Belyavsky, he needed 15.260 on the bars for bronze, but fell marginally short with 15.13. Thus Whitlock won Britain’s first all-round medal in 108 years, and all eyes were now back onto the race for the gold medal.

Verniaiev led Uchimura by 0.901 points. The Japanese gymnast went first on the high bars and put in a dynamic performance and ended with 92,365 points. Verniaiev knew he needed 14.900 to take gold but he came up short with a 14.800 after a slight hop on landing. Thus he lost the title by less than 100th of a point as Uchimura became the first man since the legendary Sawao Kato in 1972 to successfully defend his title.