Tokyo, Japan, July 28, 2021: At 19 years, 355 days, Daiki Hashimoto of Japan became the youngest Olympic All-Around champion ever in Men’s Artistic Gymnastics on Wednesday evening at Ariake Gymnastics Centre, just a half-hour’s drive from his hometown of Chiba.
Following in the footsteps of Kohei Uchimura, the 2012 and 2016 Olympic champion considered by many the greatest male gymnast of all time, Hashimoto delivered a clutch performance on Horizontal Bar in the final rotation to leapfrog a pair of World All-Around champions and keep the Olympic title in Japan.
Hashimoto totalled 88.465 across all six disciplines to secure the gold. China’s 2017 world champion Xiao Ruoteng earned 88.065 for the silver and Nikita Nagornyy of the Russian Olympic Committee, the reigning world and European champion, won the bronze with 88.031.
"All the hard work over the past five years has led to this medal,” said Hashimoto, who leads an up-and-coming group of Japanese stars that includes 2018 Youth Olympic Games champion Takeru Kitazono, fifth overall.
"Although I want to follow what Uchimura has built and founded in the last decades in Gymnastics, I want to lead as a next-generation gymnast in Japan."
Hashimoto also said that he initially did not believe it would be possible for him to win after seeing the level of Gymnastics displayed at the Olympics five years ago in Rio de Janeiro, which began when he was just 14.
Yet when his moment to perform on the Olympic stage arrived this week, he did not feel nervous. “I just tried to enjoy the competition with myself, not compete with other people. No regrets."
Hashimoto is the only teenage male ever to win the Olympic All-Around title, with the gold coming 10 days before his 20th birthday on 7 August. His victory gives Japan a record seventh Olympic All-Around title, surpassing the USSR, which accumulated six between 1952 and 1988.
