Kohei Uchimura of Japan crusied to yet another World All Around title, further solidifying the belief that he may just be the best gymnast to ever live. Uchimura made history tonight by becoming the first gymnast to win 3-straight World All Around titles. In a decisive victory, he captured the gold medal with more than three points to spare. 

 

The night began with the top group on floor, and it proceeded to be the Uchimura show through all 6 rotations. The defending World Champ stuck his triple twist dismount on floor, and flew through his pommel routine. His scores on these 2 events were enough to put him in the lead early in the evening, despite the fact that half of his competitors had already gone through vault, where scores this quad are inflated. He is just that good. 

 

Uchimura increased his lead each time he touched the apparatus, while the rest of the field battled for the silver and bronze medals. 

 

Philipp Boy of Germany was the surprise silver medalist at last year's Worlds. He came to Tokyo with higher expectations and struggled through the qualification round and Team Finals. Tonight he put it all together, but was still in 6th place heading into the final rotation. He competed first on high bar and delivered the routine of his life: a huge full twisting laid out kovacs, clean form, and a stuck double twisting double layout. His score of 16.066 with 7.40 difficulty was the highest score tonight on the apparatus. 

 

The British youngster Daniel Purvis was in medal contention throughout the night but couldn't match Boy's skills on high bar. He competed a clean routine to close out a solid competition and fell just 3 tenths shy of the bronze medal. 

 

Much to the delight of the Japanese crowd, Koji Yamamuro delivered an excellent routine on high bar to join Uchimura on the medal podium. 

 

The American guys had high hopes coming into the finals after sitting 2nd and 3rd after the qualification round, but couldn't duplicate the performance tonight. John Orozco hit his routines but didn't seem to get into his groove until parallel bars where he nailed his routine for a 15.366. He shot up to 7th place with only high bar remaining. After a big, clean performance on high bar, he finished the day 5th place in his first World Championships. This kid is the future of Team USA. 

 

As for Danell Leyva, the reigning US Champion had an uncharacteristic performance starting with a fall on vault, and ending with a nasty crash during his Liukin release move on high bar. It was enough to keep him from finishing the routine. While extremely disappointed, Leyva will walk away from this evening with even more motivation for the next competition. 

 

 

Here are the Full Results of the 2011 World All Around Finals: 

 

 

1 UCHIMURA Kohei JPN 93.631

2 BOY Philipp GER 90.530

3 YAMAMURO Koji JPN 90.255

4 PURVIS Daniel GBR 89.932

5 OROZCO John USA 89.664

6 BELYAVSKIY D. RUS 89.274

7 KUKSENKOV M. UKR 89.132

8 NGUYEN Marcel GER 88.831

9 TOMMASONE Cyril FRA 88.565

10 MARTINEZ Rafael ESP 88.089

10 KIM Seungil KOR 88.089

12 KOCZI Flavius ROU 87.998

13 SHATILOV A. ISR 87.433

14 FOKIN Anton UZB 87.364

15 GARIBOV Emin RUS 87.331

16 LIKHOVITSKIY A. BLR 87.165

17 KIM Soo Myun KOR 87.164

18 TENG Haibin CHN 87.031

19 STEPKO Oleg UKR 86.264

20 BUCHER Pascal SUI 85.031

21 GOMEZ FUERTES ESP 84.907

22 GONZALEZ Tomas CHI 84.365

23 GAFUIK Nathan CAN 82.698

24 LEYVA Danell USA 80.206

(score for Leyva is with less than half of a high bar routine)

Check out video interviews with the gymnasts and coaches following the competition. It is amazing how much the other gymnasts admire Uchimura. 
- Interview with Kohei Uchimura (with an English Translator)
- Interview with Kohei Uchimura in Japanese
- Interview with Philipp Boy 
- Interview with Danell Leyva
- Interview with Daniel Purvis
- Interview with Yin Alvarez (coach/stepfather of Leyva)
- Interview with John Orozco
- Interview with Pascal Bucher
- Interview with Japanese legend Hiroyiki Tomita 

- Fun facts with John Orozco

 

For a full rundown of tonight's competition, check out my live blog here.