ANTWERP, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo Olympic champion Daiki Hashimoto of Japan secured his second consecutive world all-around title with 86.132 points on Thursday in a thrilling final at the 52nd FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships.
With this gold, Hashimoto becomes the first man to repeat as world all-around champion since Japan's Uchimura Kohei, who won six in a row from 2009 to 2015.
Silver medalist Illia Kovtun of Ukraine emerged from deep within the chasing pack to earn his second world all-around medal in three years with a score of 84.998. As the bronze medalist in his World Championships debut in 2021, he was only the 19th best performer in qualification in Antwerp.
19-year-old Frederick Richard from the United States ended a 13-year U.S. men's medals drought by clinching bronze in his first individual world final.
The competition was tight through the first four rotations where less than a point separated six leading performers: Sun Wei of China, Hashimoto, Kovtun, Jake Jarman of Britain, Richard, and top qualifier Kenta Chiba from Japan.
Unlike his rivals, Hashimoto made his biggest mistake early in the first rotation of floor exercise. He scored only 13.466 points, landing him in the 17th position among the 24 competitors.
However, he finished all the other five apparatus with top three scores and won the highest score of 14.500 in the last rotation on horizontal bar.
China's 28-year-old Sun Wei led the overall scores as the top two before the fifth rotation of floor exercise where he stepped out of bounds to incur a 0.3-point penalty. Sun lost control on the pommel horse as he fell off twice to finish with only 12.300. His total score of 82.698 landed him in seventh place.
The Antwerp event will continue with the women's all-around final on Friday evening. China's 16-year-old world debutant Qiu Qiyuan will join the competition. ■
