For the Japanese, anything less than gold was unacceptable. So Daiki Hashimoto shrugged off an earlier mishap on pommel, chalked up for the horizontal bar, and lifted his colleagues to the team title Monday after China’s Su Weide fell twice.
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Team primacy is paramount to the Japanese, whose culture prizes collective achievement. But individual transcendence is valued, too. So also winning the all-around matters a great deal.
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Hashimoto, the defending champion and two-time reigning world titlist, was the decided favorite Wednesday night inside Bercy Arena.
Related: Frederick Richard knows he didn't do his best in the all-around, but he remains unfazed.
But the man who prevailed instead was Shinnosuke Oka, who stepped up after Hashimoto faltered on pommel horse and held off a brace of Chinese rivals for the individual triumph.
“I wanted to win, and of course if I beat Hashimoto-san, I thought I would win the gold,” said Oka after he provided Japan with an unprecedented fourth consecutive all-around crown. “I think it was very good that I did not make any mistakes.”
Had Hashimoto managed to keep his title, he would have been in rare company indeed. Only the Soviet Union’s Viktor Chukarin (1952-56) and Japan’s Sawao Kato (1968-72) and Kohei Uchimura (2012-16) have managed that feat.
But any chance of matching them ended when Hashimoto, after a middling effort on floor, was unhorsed on the second event and dropped from third place to 15th.
“While I didn’t become the Olympic champion again I believe I still have the potential to win the Olympic title multiple times,” said Hashimoto, who is only 22 years old. “I want to keep believing in that possibility and continue competing.”
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Hashimoto managed to climb back to sixth, but his role from that point was to give a reassuring boost to the 20-year-old Oka, who was making his senior global debut at these Games.
“Hashimoto-san kept telling me to be confident and try your best,” said Oka, whose future in the sport seemed doubtful after he tore an ACL two years ago. “He was giving that advice from the beginning. It gave me a lot of power.”
The Chinese, who haven’t won the all-around since Yang Wei in Beijing in 2008, still were smarting from letting the team title slip away on the final rotation when the gold appeared to be in their grasp.
“The last days have been very intense, very thrilling,” said Xiao Ruoteng, the Tokyo runner-up who took the bronze behind Zhang Boheng this time. “The competition between us and Japan, people felt it. Of course we had our eyes on the prize of the gold.”
After four of the six rotations, Ukraine was in position to go 1-2 with Oleg Verniaiev, the 2016 silver medalist, and Illia Kovtun.
But they came to grief on the high bar, and going into the final rotation, Oka was up by a third of a point on Xiao with Zhang a fraction behind.
“Of course there was nervousness, but I clung to the enjoyment of the moment, embracing all the emotions,” Oka said. “I stayed concentrated, highlighted the critical points, and remained calm. There weren’t moments when my legs shook. I felt pursued rather than chasing, which drastically changed my approach to performance.”
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The high bar, of course, was where Japan clinched its team title. When Oka finished with a 14.500, then the highest mark of the night on the apparatus, Oka knew that he’d beaten Xiao. Now he had to watch Zhang, the last man up.
Zhang posted a 14.633, but it wasn’t enough to eclipse Oka’s lead, and Japan had pulled off the double that it craved for the second time in three Games after having done it at last year’s world meet in Antwerp.
“We have to admit that gymnastics in Japan is an extremely strong sport,” Zhang acknowledged. “We observe their performance, we observe their results in the international arena, and we learn from them.”
The only thing missing for the Japanese here was the pleasure of seeing the Russians a step lower on the award stand. But they beat all comers, which has been their goal ever since Japan knocked off the USSR in both the team and all-around in 1964.
Maybe the countryman on top of the podium wasn’t the one they were expecting back home, but the flag and anthem were the same, which is all that mattered to the Japanese.
“I’ve achieved creating a mark as a champion,” said Oka, who’ll have a chance for two more gold medals in the event finals for parallel bars and high bar. “Now I want to continue challenging myself and keep winning as the audience expects me to. The spirit of challenge is something I don’t want to lose.”
John Powers can be reached at john.powers@globe.com.
