Team Competition

We could condition well in Busan, Korea, until the podium training at Sajik Gymnasium. However, during warm-up, just before the team competition, Tsukahara missed a vault (he couldn't push against the horse), and fell on his landing. He injured his right thumb. Fortunately, it was not broken, but sprained lightly, and he was still able to perform in all the events.

The obvious mistakes were in Tsukahara's floor (he went out of bounds, and was over-time), pommel horse (he fell from the horse) and horizontal bar (he stopped), Kashima's vault (put his hands down on the landing), and Mizutori's horizontal bar (he fell)...in total, we counted five major breaks. The total team score (225.6) was better than we expected (225.0), and we were satisfied with the team results, considering everything.

The difference between our score and that of China was 3.225. That difference was smaller than that of the '01 East Asian Games (5.675) and that of the '01 Universiade (3.45 with the top 3 on each event), but Korea, the host country, beat us.

All-Around Final

The two spots for each delegation (NOC) went to Tomita and Mizutori, who were our top two in the team competition. Tomita fell from pommel horse in the first rotation, and scored only 8.75. However, he regained his momentum from the rings, and kept his usual steady performance to climb to fourth place, but it was not enough to win a medal. Mizutori was very steady, and didn't miss on any event, and ranked fifth after Tomita. It was good opportunity for him to get confidence as an all-around competitor.

Apparatus Final Day 1

Kashima was the second performer on floor, and had a very good landing on his tumbling pass to score 9.375. He could have won a medal, but the three other performers passed him, and he fell to fourth.

On pommel horse, Tomita was the second performer, and Kashima was the seventh. Tomita performed the part of his routine which he missed in the all-around final well, but touching the horse in the swing elements cost him and his score was 9.600. Kashima was most confident on his favorite event. He was solid as usual to score 9.700. Eventually, Kashima got a bronze medal, and Tomita placed seventh, respectively.

On rings, Tomita was the first performer. Harada, replacing the injured Tsukahara, was the eighth performer. Tomita showed a very clean performance to score 9.600 and win a bronze medal, but Harada missed his strength elements in the first part of routine, which reduced his SV to score only 8.700; he placed eighth.

Apparatus Final day 2

We could not send anyone to the vault final. Vault is our weakest event. On parallel bars, Tomita missed his piked Belle (he fell). He also could not perform this in practice. The result was that he reduced his SV and scored 8.750 to rank eighth.

On horizontal bar, Tomita once again performed first, and Kashima was the fifth performer. Tomita did not do as well as we hoped. He was perfect except for his landing (he took a small hop backward) and scored 9.800. A Chinese and a Korean gymnast tied with him, but he won the sole gold medal for Japan. Kashima was also perfect including his landing, but his low SV (9.8) made him place seventh.

Conclusion

I feel responsible for our poor results in the team competition at this meet. However, even though we still could not have good results, Tomita's gold medal on the very last event, horizontal bar, as well as the bronze medals on pommel horse and rings in the apparatus finals was a hopeful sign, and the media was also impressed with this.

I can not avoid discussing the trouble with the judging. This always exists in competitions held in Asian countries, and they say that the '98 Asian Games(in Bangkok, Thailand) had the same trouble. This time, it was the same or even worse than that of '98. According to the IF rule, each apparatus had a chief judge, a technical assistant judge, and four B panels. 36 judges then, besides time and line judges for floor, are required for an entire gymnastics meet. The delegations (NOC) could not send a sufficient number of judges, and so eventually they needed to get the judges they couldn't get from the competing countries from the host country as "AGU (Asia Gymnastic Union)".

The competition often slowed or stopped because of judges' conferences. Moreover, we sometimes saw score corrections and the changes in rank after the scores were flashed. The press was also interested in that and asked us about it many times. Since the scandal in the '02 Winter Olympics, there has been lots of concern about the future of subjectively scored sports, so we had to be very careful about what we said.

We think this problem will be repeated every four years, unless we can control the number of judges from each NOC and the AGU, and we can strictly manage the judges. The victim is not only for Japan but for gymnasts from all over the world, and gymnastics itself. We will surely have to tackle this problem as the Japan Gymnastic Association and AGU.

In conclusion, we really appreciate the support of the people concerned with gymnastics and gymnastics fans.