Kohei Uchimura

Uchimura joined Japan's national team in 2007. He made his senior debut at the 2007 Paris World Cup in March, a major international event. Here he won bronze on vault and placed ninth on floor. In August, he won team gold and 1st on floor and 3rd on vault at the 2007 Summer Universiade in Bangkok. At Japan's national championships in October, he placed 7th in the all around. A month later, at the international "Good Luck Beijing" event, he won silver with the Japanese team and placed 7th on floor exercise.

In October 2009, Uchimura competed at the 2009 World Championships. Here, he dominated both the qualifications and the all around final. He won the all around title by a margin of 2.575 points ahead of Daniel Keatings, marking top scores for floor, rings, vault, and horizontal bar. Uchimura placed fourth on floor and sixth on high bar as well.

This led to his long win-streak at worlds and Olympics being unexpectedly broken for the only time since he started by winning the first of his six World Championships all-around title to begin that quad in 2009 and continued over two complete Olympic cycles (approximately 8 years) ending with him winning his second Olympic all-around title in 2016. This was also the first time in 9 years since before 2008 that he had not medalled, namely silver and/or gold medals, at one of the FIG's major competitions—the Olympics or World Championships.

In October 2010, Uchimura headed to the 2010 World Championships again as a member of the Japanese national team. As in the previous year, he dominated the qualifications and the all around final, winning his second consecutive all around title by a margin of 2.251 points ahead of Philipp Boy. During the all around final he had the highest score of the day on floor and the highest execution mark (9.666) for a Yurchenko 2½ twists on vault. He also contributed to Japan's team silver medal by competing the team final on all events except still rings. He qualified for two event finals, winning silver on floor and bronze on parallel bars.

On October 14, 2011, Uchimura won the all-around final for the 3rd time at the 2011 World Championships in Tokyo, Japan. With a score of 93.631 points, Uchimura won by a margin of 3.101 points, roughly the same margin that separated 2nd and 14th place. Not only is he the first male gymnast to win three all-around titles, but he is also the first gymnast, male or female, to win three consecutive all-around titles.

At the 2011 Worlds, Uchimura also won the Longines Prize for Elegance along with Romania's Ana Porgras. The prize is given at each World Championships to the male and female gymnasts who demonstrate "the most remarkable elegance". The winners were unanimously declared by a panel of judges, where both Uchimura and Porgras were each awarded a trophy, a Longines watch, and US$5,000. Uchimura was especially pleased to win this award, since he collects watches.

In November 2011, Uchimura won 4 gold medals at the 65th Japanese Championships. Besides the all-around title, he also picked up titles on half of the apparatuses: floor exercise, pommel horse, and high bar.

At the 2012 Olympics in London, Uchimura's score should have qualified him for the individual parallel bars event finals in fifth place, but he "did not compete" (DNC) in the final due to the strict “two per country” rule for individual event finals. Ahead of him in the final were the top two qualifiers—Japanese siblings, the Tanaka brothers. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Uchimura's qualification score made him first reserve (R1) alternate in the individual parallel bars finals too, but he ended up not competing.

Uchimura married in autumn of 2012 and has two daughters, born in 2013 and 2015. Asked if he would teach them gymnastics, he replied, "If they were boys I think I probably would... but I don't understand women's gymnastics, and I think it's much more severe." He eats just one meal a day and rather dislikes vegetables.

On October 9, 2014, Uchimura once again made history, winning a record fifth consecutive all around world championship at Nanning. He totaled 91.965 points, 1.492 points above Great Britain's Max Whitlock to capture the title.

On October 30, 2015, Uchimura won his record sixth world gymnastics championship title. Uchimura posted a total of 92.332, more than 1.6 points ahead of Cuban teenager Manrique Larduet and Deng Shudi of China.

Uchimura competed in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. In the men's team all-around final, Uchimura anchored the Japanese team to win the gold medal with a score of 274.094, reclaiming the title for Japan for the first time since the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.

At the 2017 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Montreal, his world all-around champion streak that began in 2009 came to an end when he injured his ankle on his vault landing in qualification, forcing him to withdraw.

Uchimura has won at least one medal in every world championships and Olympic Games since 2008 except in 2017 where he injured his left ankle after only finishing 3 out of 6 routines in the individual all-around qualifier at the 2017 World Championships, which abruptly ended his 8-year win streak in a two-full-Olympic-cycle reign as world and Olympic champion, and "withdrew" (WD) from the event. In his 2018 return, Uchimura had yet to fully regain his previous top form and winning ways in terms of fitness level and preparation. Also, his results at the 2018 World Championships reflected that as he competed a reduced schedule, and in only one individual event final, he did however contribute several routines to team Japan’s final score, which won him bronze in team and silver in individual horizontal bar event finals. However, Uchimura’s Olympic winning streak was similarly uncertain due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused postponement of the Games for a year.