52nd MEN's ARTISTIC GYMNASTICS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

With the 52^nd MEN's WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS 2023 in Antwerp/BEL (Sep. 30 - Oct. 08), the Olympic preparation for the 2024 Games in Paris enters its hot phase:
Already at the end of the second competition day (Sunday, October 01), the 12 top nations that have qualified as complete teams for the Olympic start in Paris will be determined.

* Japan's Olympic champion Daiki HASHIMOTO (20) successfully defended his last year's title in Antwerp and won all-around gold again with 86.132 points. In a dramatic last round, the Ukrainian Illia KOVTUN kept his nerve with the best bars routine of the day and secured the silver medal with 84.998.
Although Frederick RICHARDS (USA) fell on the last apparatus high bar, it was the bronze medal in the end (84.332), because his fiercest competitor, the qualifier Kenta CHIBA (JPN; 83.464) also missed his high bar routine and fell back to fourth place.

* The best eight men's teams competed for the title of World Team Champion on Tuesday (03 October) in the Team Final:
After a break of 8 years, the JAPAN, which were already clearly leading after the qualification, won the 7th team gold in history. With 255.594 points, they relegated defending champions CHINA, who had "played poker" as eighth in the preliminaries, to second place (253.794). The fight for bronze was exciting, which the USA finally won with their best floor result and overall more balanced apparatus performance with 249.461 against Great Britain (249.461), whose error rate on floor, horse and high bar was too high.
Switzerland took 5th place, the best result in history since 1954, and Germany finished 6th (244.026) ahead of Canada and Italy.
* Already on Sunday the decision about the 12 Olympic places of the nations had been made, whereby Germany and Switzerland had booked their participation in the Olympics.The Ukrainians, who were not quite flawless, but were also lucky to qualify for Paris in 12th place...:
* On Thursday, October 05 the new men's gymnastics king is sought ...

.→ TODAY:  * Thursday, October 05

♦♦ MEN's IND. ALL-AROUND FINAL

The defending World champion of Liverpool 2022 is  Olympic champion Daiki HASHIMOTO (Tokyo 2021) who defeated the 2021 world champion of 2022 in Kitakyushu, the Chinese ZHANG Boheng,  (- who just now realized a high score of 89,299 (!) points at the Asian Games in Hangzhouand) but also all-around bronze also went to Asia a year ago, to Japan's Wataru TANIGAWA. Behind Brody Melone (USA), Britain's Jake Jarman was the best European in fifth place. Germany's Lukas Dauser finished 11^th - the best German result again since last Fabian Hambuechen's 8^th place 2014 in Nanning.
* Overview of ► All World Championships AA decisions of the last years

► Standing after qualification
► STARTING LIST;   - the best 24 gymnasts, max. 2 per nation Nation
   * JAPAN sends Olympic champion Daiki HASHIMOTO to the apparatus instead of Kaya
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The new "king of gymnastics" is again Japanese

Although only third in the preliminary competition, Olympic champion and defending champion Daiki HASHIMOTO fwent into this World Championships final for his team mate Kazuma Kaya, and rightly so, because the twenty-year-old elegant defending champion proved to be the superior gymnast in the end, because he was technically the most demanding on all apparatus. Despite a less successful start on floor, he achieved the second highest scores on horse, rings and vault and secured the third best bars result, where he was only surpassed by Lukas Dauser (6.6=15.400 and the Ukrainian Illia Kovtun. With the strongest high bar performance of the competition, he also shone with the highest execution score (E) and set the top score of 86.132 ahead of the competition.
SUN WEI, who was expected to be the strongest competitor, was the only (!) Chinese gymnast in this final, but after a weak qualification, despite the best ring score and an intermediate lead after the fourth round, he did not score a top performance and even had to dismount involuntarily twice on the last apparatus, the horse.

But behind the Ukrainian Illia Kovtun, who had consistently worked his way up from 20th place (after rings) to 11th place (vault) and especially after his excellent bars routine (6.7 = 15.166) to 4th place before the last apparatus, a dramatic event had developed: After the British gymnast Jake Jarman, who was considered a co-favourite, had already taken himself out of the running with a weak ring routine, his super jump (a tsukahara with 3 1/2-length axial turns) was highly rated, but a high bar fall ended all his medal dreams.
The US-American Frederick RICHARDS, who was still in second place before the last apparatus, seemed to have lost all his medal dreams, because he did not catch the grip after a flying element over the high bar ... Suddenly Illia KOVTUN was over and took second place behind DAIKI HASHIMOTO, who with his second World Championship victory now seems to continue the Japanese World Championship series of six of the incredible Kohei Uchimura.

And only the best gymnast in the preliminaries, Kenta Chiba, who had just finished third in front of Kovtun, was so highly motivated that he flew much too far on what was actually a relatively easy counter element, missed the grip and the almost certain medal was gone ...!

* Frederick RICHARDS (USA) :  - Bronze medal at the last minute t!!
* Daiki HASHIMOTO (JPN)      .  - the old and new "KING of GYMNASTICS"

Frederick RICHARDS could hardly believe it: Just a moment ago, the US-American was still standing on the bronze podium, beaming with happiness!
The fantastic 8th TOP-Ten place of the Swiss Noe Seifert should not go unmentioned: Still on rank 39 last year in Liverpool, he achieved the best Swiss World Championships all-around placing in this millennium, which has never been better than 13^th place three times so far.
The 16th place of the only German in the all-around final, Lukas Dauser, who had already taken a step back in the team final with only two apparatus, should rather be seen as a "warm-up" for his final performance next Sunday on parallel bars, for which he was able to mark the top score today already and for the second time at this World Championships (6.6 = 15.400).

  * F I N A L  R E S U L T S

1. HASHIMOTO Daiki        (JPN)  86,132
2. KOVTUN Illia               (UKR)  - 84,998
3. RICHARDS Frederick (USA)  - 84,332
      4. CHIBA Kenta                   (JPN)  - 83,464
      5. KARIMI Milad                  (KAZ)  - 82,941
      6. ABBADINI Yumin              (ITA)  - 82,832
      7. SUN Wei                         (CHN)  - 82,698
      8. SEIFERT Noe                   (SUI)  - 82,432
     ...
    16. DAUSER Lukas               (GER)  - 80,431
              ► Detailed Results
  + + +

* Saturday, October 07
♦♦  MEN's APPARATUS FINALS (Part 1)  > S t a r t i n g  L i s t s                    

P O M M E L   H O R S E
 * Titel holder: Rhys Mc Clenaghan (IRL)  * Quali.:  ►P o m m e l  h o r s e

Mc Clenaghan Rhys    (IRL) - (6.4) =15,100
YOUNG Khoi               (USA)  - 6.5) =14,966
ABU AL SOUD Ahmad (JOR) - (6.4) =14,633
            ► Detailed Results
 ** First the Vice World Champion LEE from Korea failed and then also the Olympic Champion Max Whitlock had to leave the tournament early. Nils Dunkel did very well, but with a small mistake in his posture during a 360 degree turn he was deducted (7th place).  A 20-year old US-American Khoi YOUNG - Pan American winner - was ahead, but the brilliant defending champion Rhys MC CLENAGHAN performed his routine with the higher E-grade and successfully defended his last year's title! Last year's runner-up Ahmad ABU AL SOUD wins the second World Championship medal for Jordan, now with bronze.

►►
MEN's Pommel horse Champions ALL
+ + +

→ ... and at last:
♦ SUNDAY, Oct. 08: APPARATUS FINALS, part II
   02.00 pm - 06.00 pm:  (- the best 8 per app,; max. 2 per nation)
                              * MEN:  > VT;  > P.bars;  > H.bar;
                    ( ► WOMEN: > B.beam,  > Floor ex.)

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