“Oh my God, I did it, oh my God, I did it, oh my God, I did it.”
That’s what Paul Juda said out loud as he dismounted his pommel horse, his last test in the men’s gymnastics all-around final.
He wasn’t talking about winning a medal, but about making the most of the competition in an Olympic all-around final. “It’s the experience of a lifetime,” said Juda, who had no idea he would be at the event, as his teammate Brody Malone, the US national all-around champion, was expected to compete alongside Frederick Richard. But Malone had error-filled routines in the qualifying round and failed to get one of the top 24 scores to qualify for the all-around.
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The competition revolved around a battle between the two Japanese gymnasts, Daiki Hashimoto and Shinnosuke Oka, and the two Chinese gymnasts Zhang Boheng and Xiao Ruoteng. Hashimoto, the reigning Olympic all-around champion and two-time world champion, fought in the team event and got off the pommel horse during his routine. He excelled again in the all-around competition and, after six rotations, was unable to defend his Olympic title and finished in sixth place. “Although I did not become Olympic champion again, I believe that I still have the potential to win the Olympic title several times,” he said after the competition. “I want to keep believing in this possibility and keep competing.”
His teammate Shinnosuke Oka stepped in and performed six solid routines to win gold, beating China’s Zhang, who won silver, by 0.233 points and China’s Xiao, who won bronze. Juda finished in 14th place and Richard in 15th.
It is the fourth consecutive Olympics in which a Japanese gymnast has won the all-around title. Oka was impressive from the start, executing consistent routines as the competition unfolded and not looking worn out after helping Japan win team gold two days earlier. “I felt pursued rather than pursued, which drastically changed my approach to my performance,” he said.
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For the Americans, it was a learning opportunity. “I study their training style a lot,” Richard said. “I study the fact that the basic fundamentals of gymnastics are at a very high level, and when I come to these competitions, it really motivates me to get back in the gym and master the basics to get to the next level.”
Richard, the current world bronze medalist, was trying to repeat his podium finish in Paris. But stronger Chinese gymnasts than those who competed at last year’s world championships, where the country’s top-ranked athlete placed seventh in the individual all-around, put the medal out of reach.
Known for his confidence and bold, ambitious predictions, Richard struggled from his first event, the pommel horse, when he lost his balance and fell off the apparatus. Their routines weren’t as clean as two days earlier when the US men won team bronze, and Richard admitted he had some things to learn about managing the energy needed to navigate high-level competition. “There is a lot to learn to discover how in my training I can replicate recovery faster – I gave everything in the team final – and it was so worth it. But I didn’t bounce back the way I thought I would or wanted to, so that showed today.”
Juda tried not to focus on qualifying and whether he would be in medal contention, but he told himself, “I will leave this experience with gymnastics that I am very proud of.”
Like Juda, Richard realized shortly after his first race that the podium was not likely and decided to make the most of the rest of his Olympic experience. “I focused on staying in the moment and achieving the goal of just doing gymnastics at the level I know how to do, but my body just didn’t have the energy I needed to actually perform at that level,” he said.
But he is already looking ahead to 2028. “I never had four years to really start at a good level and plan [things] how do I do this phase until 2028”, he said. “I’m going back to the gym very hungry and I’m not satisfied with the place I’ve achieved here. The world is always waiting for a perfect story, and unfortunately, I can’t always give it to them. But I had a lot of fun during this entire week of competition and I’ll be [in gymnastics] for a while.”
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
