LONDON — Keep this up, and Kohei Uchimura will have a world title to go with his Olympic silver medal.
Uchimura lived up to his favored status Tuesday, cruising to the top spot after the first two sessions of qualifying at the world gymnastics championships. His score of 90.925 points was more than 1½ points better than anyone else, with one session left.
Maxim Deviatovski of Russia, the leader after the first session, is second with 89.350 points and American Tim McNeill, competing at his first major international competition, is a surprising third with 88.775 points. Britain’s Daniel Keatings is fourth while U.S. champion Jonathan Horton is fifth after a fall on pommel horse.
Uchimura is just 20, and few knew much about him before last year’s Beijing Olympics. But with Olympic champion Yang Wei, 2005 world champion Hiroyuki Tomita and Paul Hamm gone, he’s the one everyone is chasing. Especially with European champion Fabian Hambuechen out with a bum foot and Horton unable to master the pommel horse.
The latest in a long history of elegant Japanese gymnasts, Uchimura appears to have no flaws, doing each of his routines with smooth control. On still rings, he moved from one strength position to another so easily he almost seemed to have a motor attached to him. He held himself upside down for what seemed like a minute at one point, surely causing envy among all those kids who once had contests to see who could stand on their head the longest.
His high bar routine had the crowd oohing and aahing, getting so much air on his release moves he could have thrown in another somersault. Yet he does each skill with such precision it’s almost as if they’re in slow motion.
Uchimura isn’t perfect, though. He underrotated his vault and stumbled backward several steps to keep himself from falling on his backside.
But it wasn’t enough to threaten his lead — especially after Horton botched his pommel horse routine.
The American champion arrived at worlds brimming with confidence, a silver medal on high bar and a surprise team bronze at the Beijing Olympics giving him the confidence to know he really does belong among the best of the best. And after four events, he trailed Uchimura by a mere .125 points.
Too bad for Horton he still had to do pommel horse, his longtime nemesis. He might have won an all-around medal in Beijing if not for his shaky horse routine. Ditto for the 2007 worlds, where he missed the bronze medal by a measly two-tenths of a point.
He’ll get a do-over in the all-around final, but he can’t afford another routine like this one.
Horton made one save after getting off balance midway through his routine, but he seemed to run out of gas near the end, stalling and taking a seat on the horse. He got off and slowly walked to put more chalk on his hands as coach Tom Meadows jumped up on the podium to give him a few words of encouragement.
Horton finished without any more mishaps, but he was clearly dejected. He scored a 12.8, dropping him more than two points behind Uchimura going into the final event.
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