(Reuters) – Japanese Olympic champion Daiki Hashimoto claimed a second all-around men’s title with a 86.132 total score on Thursday at the World Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp.
The 22-year-old showed great control on the parallel bars to take the lead after a slow start on the floor. He secured the gold on the final rotation with a score of 14.500 on the horizontal bar, the same exercise on which he locked up Japan’s men’s team gold on Tuesday.
Ukraine’s Illia Kovtun capitalised on his performance on the parallel bars and took second place with 84.998, highlighted by a solid floor routine.
World debutant Kenta Chiba, 27, fell one short of the podium after a fall on the horizontal bar before repeating the exercise with a score of 12.633 for a total of 83.464, giving bronze to American Frederick Richard.
The 19-year-old Richard, who excelled on vault and parallel bars, also fell on the horizontal bar but took a surprising third place with 84.332 points.
The women’s individual all-around final takes place on Friday.
(Reporting by Angelica Medina in Mexico City, editing by Ed Osmond)
