Despite the extreme pressure that is weighed upon his muscular shoulders, Japanese artistic gymnastics superstar Kohei Uchimura remained firm and shrugged off the pressure.
“I don’t think of it as a pressure”, the six-time World gold All-around medalist told the Japan times. “I don’t think about what will happen if I made a mistake – I think about how the team will benefit if I’m successful.
“A lot of people wish me well and say to me: ‘Bring home the gold medal.’ I want to respond to those expectations and that makes me stronger. I only think in positive terms, and that’s why I have become good at dealing with the pressure.”
Uchimura’s goal is to lead his teammates to Olympic team gold – a feat last achieved by the Japanese team in 2004. Another objective of “King Kohei” is to defend his All-around title, while also cementing his reputation as the greatest gymnast of all time.
The Japanese national team – which includes Uchimura, Yusuke Tanaka, Ryohei Kato, Kenzo Shira and Koji Yamamuro – advances to Rio with a high after finally achieving a feat never done in the past 37 years – to win a team title at a World Championship.
The Japanese crowd is expecting another strong performance from the Japanese team in Rio in August, which will hopefully end China’s two straight winning streak at the Olympic Games (2008, 2012), but Uchimura is happy to stay above the fray.
“It’s not that I try to make myself calm, it just happens naturally through experience,” said the Japanese superstar. “I don’t get so excited by the Olympics nowadays. There’s no special feeling. I even feel a little sad for myself that I’m not able to feel anything special about competing in the Olympics.”
“But I think that’s probably a good thing. I don’t think it’s good for your performance to feel different just because it’s the Olympics.”
In his third Olympic participation, Kohei Uchimura has been assigned as team leader of the Japanese men’s artistic team, and Tanaka has noticed a change in his teammate.
“He has more conversations with everyone now,” said the 26-year-old Tanaka, who was a member of the silver medal-winning team at the 2012 Olympic Games in London 4 years ago along with Uchimura, Kato, Yamamuro and Kazuhito Tanaka.
“Everyone has more experience as a team. Of course when you’re performing you’re on your own, but really, you’re not alone. Because everyone has more experience as a team, it creates an atmosphere that makes it easier to perform.”
Four years ago, the Japanese national team took the silver medal from Britain after lodging a last-gap appeal against a low score awarded to Uchimura after he failed to properly dismount from the pommel horse.
At the Rio 2016 Olympics, Uchimura believes that this same apparatus can make or break Japan’s gold medal winning potential.
“We start on the pommel horse, and if we’re successful, we can ride the momentum for the rest of the competition,” he said. “That’s the apparatus that’s easiest to fall off, so if we can do well it will help us to relax as a team.
“On the other hand, if we fail at the start it could end up being the same as in London. But we’ve picked up a lot of experience since then and we have to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
In the upcoming Olympic Games, the crowd’s focus will be on the Japanese superstar Kohe Uchimura as he tries to create another historic feat at the competition that will take place this August.
Uchimura believes that Rio will be the last Olympics where he is at the peak of his physical condition, and the world will be watching with bated breath.
“I’ve grown up a lot” said the 27-year-old gymnast “I’m usually calm but also I’ve learned how to get people fired up when they need to be fired up. I feel like I’ve become a lot wiser.”
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