Japan’s Kohei Uchimura in action in the men’s rings during the Men’s Team Final on Monday.
DOHA: Six-time world All-around champion Kohei Uchimura felt that Japan team need to put in a lot of efforts before the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games after his side fell to a bronze medal in Doha.
Defending champions Japan finished third in the MAG Team final behind China and Russia at the 48th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships on Monday which also handed the legend Uchimura his 20th Worlds medal.
“The five of us did our best but found out there are many things we need to work on. We can work together and win the gold in the Olympics. Hopefully, that’s what we want to do,” Uchimura said.
Japan, who collected 253.744 points, finished behind China (256.634) and Russian Federation (256.585).
The 29-year-old felt that this ankle injury a month before the Doha Worlds restricted his performances.
“I feel very bad for my team-mates because I had injuries from the beginning, and I was not happy about that,” said Uchimura, who also missed last year’s edition in Montreal, Canada, due to an ankle injury on vault landing during the qualifications.
On not competing on all six apparatus in the team final here, he added, “Until the last minute, I thought I could do it. However, it wasn’t possible. As a result, I had 50-50 feelings.”
Meanwhile, China’s Xiao Ruoteng praised young gymnast for the gold medal performance.
“We’re really happy because some of our gymnasts are in the World Championships for the first time, and they are already the champions,” he said.
“We are a young team but we are a strong team. We believe in ourselves, but we can do even better. We have to teach ourselves how to (cope with) the pressure, and we to come back better, training harder at home.”
On his fall from the horizontal bar as the last Chinese competitor in the last rotation on Monday, he said: “I really regret that. I was totally ready for this competition, but we are a team and everyone encouraged me.”
“We are a team. The atmosphere on our team is really great.”
“We are so happy that we qualified to Tokyo because it was our (main) goal and we made every effort to do that.”
