All Japan Championships (Day Two & Three)
All Japan concluded the other day and I’ve gotta say that the competition was very exciting.
The second day, which was the team championships ended up being a close battle between Konami and Japan Sports Science University (Nittaidai). Konami is a team full of veterans that has former Olympic and World Championship members. However, Nittaidai is young and fearless team, and one of their members is Kohei Uchimura, the reigning world champion. The win could’ve gone to either team but the last guy on Konami (Koji Uematsu) hit a huge high bar set to clinch the title. His high bar set was definitely one of the most difficult sets I’ve ever seen but the guy nailed it clean (he was fourth in the event finals with a fall). The university that I’m training at, Juntendo University, ended up in fourth. It was a good meet overall, and fourth place among all the good teams was not a bad finish at all.
As for event finals, there were several highlights. First of all, the college gymnasts almost swept the entire meet. They won 5 out of the 6 events (minus high bar, which Hisashi Mizutori won). In particular I was impressed with the difficult vaults that the Japanese gymnasts were doing. There were several double-twisting kasamatsu’s (Lopez), and front handspring 5/2 twists (Yeo II). As always I thought that Kohei had a nice floor routine. He definitely changed it up a bit since world championships by adding a couple of new passes. One of them was a back 3/2 to a front 1/3 with a full twist. He also hit a strong parallel bars and high bar set. The Japanese seemed to be raising their start values on pommel horse as well.
In general I was really impressed by the depth of the Japanese program. It was a great learning experience for me to be able to watch the competition and definitely something useful during my recovery period. All in all I had a great time at the meet and seeing a bunch of my friends! I had a great time traveling around Tokyo as well.
Now that I’m back from the meet, it’s time for me to get back to business. I’m slowly working my way towards doing some real gymnastics. I can’t wait to train full speed!
Was there any formal recognition/memory of Endo-san?
no there wasn’t. if there was something, i assume it happened at the all-around championships that happened in april. i did see mr. endo though. he seemed to be doing well.
Hi, Sho. I was there on Sat&Sun. I couldn’ t find you on Sat but I found you on Sun, I guess. You were in brown, right?
I really enjoyed the competition. I saw several gymnastics competitions held in that venue. The floor layout and program were freshened, and I could see more performances and deeper than before. The screens helped me of finding who is performing and their scores much easier.
Sat was Tomita-san’s birthday. Did you have a sort of party? I brought him a present on Sat. He came up to the audience seats after the comp and I was going to wait for him to be free but some of his fans interrupted him talking with his acquaintances disrespectfully. He left there soon after that maybe because of that. I felt very sorry about that. I passed him a present on his way back to the floor not to miss the time but would you please kindly tell him sorry if I offended him? I was the last person who passed him a present.
And I am sorry for asking it to you at the same time.
hi mariko,
i’m sorry i missed you at the competition. it would have been great to see you!
yes, i will pass along the message to tomi-san. take care!