Hashimoto Daiki captures men’s all-around title at Gymnastics Worlds

Two-time Olympic gold medallist Hashimoto Daiki of Japan was victorious in the men’s all-around final Friday (4 November) at the 2022 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool, England.

He tallied a 87.198 to hold off 2021 world all-around winner Zhang Boheng of the People’s Republic of China. Zhang’s score was 86.765, some .433 back of gold.

“I’m so happy. I had a hard time (since Tokyo 2020), I had an injury and my body didn’t move how I wanted. That affects how I feel and my motivation,” Hashimoto told Olympics.com “So, that I’m very happy to win here. I would like to say thank you for people supporting me, coaches and my family.”

It’s the latest chapter in a developing rivalry between the two who finished separated by just 0.017 a year ago in their first global meeting.

“His performance is so good. I couldn’t win this competition last year because he won. So I felt sad,” said Hashimoto. “Competing against him was a motivation (today). The battle with Zhang Boheng is so good.”

“I feel a little bit disappointed, because as defending champion I didn’t do my best in the final today,” said Zhang. “I reduced my difficulty today because I wasn’t feeling too well. On the first two events, I decided to reduce difficulty to allow myself to compete better. I was feeling a bit under the weather and I was feeling the strain after two competitions (qualification and team final). I will do better in my next competition.”

Japan’s Tanigawa Wataru (85.231) took the bronze medal. Japan last had two men on the world all-around podium at the 2014 Worlds when Uchimura Kohei and Tanaka Yusuke also finished first and third, respectively.

Hashimoto’s gold medal is the 10th at the worlds, behind only the former Soviet Union which claimed 13 titles.

Having qualified in the lead group, Hashimoto began competition on the floor exercise with a solid performance that included stuck triple- and double-twisting, double somersaults. He earned a 14.666.

He appeared to put himself in the driver’s seat after a solid pommel horse routine, where he scored 14.333 – more than two-and-a-half points better than his mark in qualifying. Hashimoto’s 13.866 mark on the still rings in rotation three meant he was up by .499 at the competition’s halfway mark.

The margin between the duo stayed at 0.499 after both earned 14.900 scores on vault in the fourth rotation.

Hashimoto and Zhang continued their close affair on the parallel bars where Zhang earned a 15.066 with Hashimoto nearly matching it with a 15.000 minutes later.

In the final rotation, Zhang was first to go, earning a 14.433 for his high-flying horizontal bar routine. Hashimoto needed 14.001 to secure the title.

The Olympic champion on the event delivered a clean, if not somewhat conservative routine that did not include the element (a full-twisting layout Tkatchev) on which he fell in Wednesday’s team final.

His 14.433 earned his first world all-around win.