China lead as Uchimura’s Japan trail in Rio

China powered ahead as ‘King’ Kohei Uchimura and the Japanese team trailed on an opening day of men’s gymnastics overshadowed by France’s Samir Ait Said’s gruesome double leg fracture.

Led by Zhang Chenglong, the Chinese laid the groundwork for a third consecutive team title with Japan, silver medallists in 2008 and 2012, qualifying fourth best behind the United States and Russia for Monday’s team final.

“Team is always the priority,” said China’s Liu Yang after losing their world title to Japan last year. “Everyone in our team has one common goal: to get the gold medal.”

Olympic all-around champion Uchimura had a bad day with the six-time world champion scoring 91.964 points to trail Ukraine’s Oleg Verniaiev in the individual competition by a point and a half.

The 27-year-old Uchimura slipped on the pommel horse and fell off the horizontal bar, meaning he will not advance to the final on that latter apparatus where he is the reigning world champion.

But he regrouped on the floor to qualify for the final of that event behind Americans Samuel Mikulak and Jacob Dalton.

“It gives me a lot to think about. This will make me stronger,” said Uchimura, who qualified ninth in London 2012 before claiming the title.

“I made a mistake. I don’t usually do that.”

The five-man Japanese team, which also included Ryohei Kato, Yusuke Tanaka, Koji Yamamuro and Kenzo Shirai, had many errors.

“In parallel bars we all made mistakes, but I think it’s going to be okay, we’ll learn from this,” said Uchimura.

Kato qualified for the all-around final in eighth.

Verniaiev, 11th in the 2012 Olympics, gave a solid performance to qualify for six finals including the pommel horse, vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar.

“I didn’t fall on any apparatus and went through everything perfectly,” said the 22-year-old former world champion on parallel bars.

“In the team competition we’re in the top eight and that’s extremely important for us, but this is just qualification and everything starts from zero in the final.”

Russia’s David Belyavskiy qualified in third ahead of China’s Deng Shudi, Britain’s Nile Wilson and Japan’s Ryohei Kato.

China were not perfect with Zhang, the only member of the 2012 gold medal winning team, slipping off the horizontal bar.

The Chinese scored 270.461 with the United States just behind on 270.405 and Russia (269.612), Japan (269.294), Britain, Brazil, Ukraine and Germany completing the line-up for Monday’s eight-team final.

Germany’s Marcel Nguyen, the silver medallist in 2012, qualified in 22nd position with world silver medallist Manrique Larduet of Cuba 15th.

The top 24 gymnasts advance to Wednesday’s all-around final.

– Horror fall –

The four countries who failed to make the final were Switzerland, South Korea, the Netherlands and France.

Brazil kept home hopes alive with Diego Hypolito in tears after his performance on the floor earned him 15.500, just behind Uchimura, with Arthur Zanetti, the Olympic rings champion in 2012, qualifying fifth on the rotation.

Dutchman Epke Zonderland, the reigning champion on the horizontal bar, advanced to the final, with world champions Shirai (floor), Britain’s Max Whitlock (pommel horse), Greece’s Eleftherios Petrounias (rings), China’s You Hao (parallel bars) and Gwang Ri Se (vault) also in the running on their speciality.

Injury however overshadowed the day with Ait Said, 26, breaking the lower part of his left leg in two places after landing badly on the vault, in images which had spectators and competitors gasping in horror.

It was the second Olympic blow for the French rings specialist who suffered a knee injury at the London Games, and had reached the final on that apparatus in Rio.

Germany’s Andreas Toba picked up a knee ligament injury on the floor but continued on the pommel horse, allowing his team to scrape into the final.