Men's Competition
The Olympic team champion, Japan, sent all of its six Gold medal winning gymnasts to the 2004 Chunichi Cup, and none of them competed "exhibition only". No Chinese or Russian men came, but that took away none of the excitement from the Japanese performances. The Japanese men competed against two Koreans, one Belarusian, and one Australian. Korea sent its young hopefuls, Kim Dae Eun and Kim Seung Il. Kim Dae Eun was the silver medallist in the all-around final at Athens and was expected to be the biggest rival for the Japanese men. Before this final, on the previous day, the young American gymnast, Abdullah, slipped and fell from rings, and injured his right ankle. He was unconscious for a moment and was forced to withdraw from the competition.

The gymnasts were divided into two groups; each of them started from floor. The routines on this event made the first big spread among the competitors. Japanese men were very solid. The biggest error was Tomita's going out of bounds on his second pass (too high tucked full-in). Most of the Japanese scored around 9.50, and they took the lead. The competitors from the other countries had too many mistakes, and lost a lot of points of SV. Only Savenkov, the Belarusian Olympian at Athens, hit his routine.

On pommel horse, the situation did not change a lot. Nakano fell, but other Japanese were solid again, led by Tomita's 9.700, and the margin over the others got bigger. On rings, Korea's Kim Dae Eun was supposed to get a big score, but he missed his double layout back somersault dismount. After this rotation, it seemed to be hard for the foreign gymnasts to catch up with the strong and solid Japanese.

The competition among the Japanese six started to jell on vault. Yoneda overrotated his Driggs and put his hands down on the mat. Mizutori landed in a very low position and almost sat down on his Driggs. In contrast, Tomita nailed the landing of his Driggs (a little low, though). Tomita had completely recovered from his bad start on floor. On parallel bars, Tsukahara was excellent on his peach half to peach combination. He stuck his double pike dismount and scored 9.750. Tomita picked up another 9.700 on this event, and kept the lead. On horizontal bar, Tsukahara hit his Kolman, but could not complete his el-grip giant sequence, so he lost some SV. His score was only 9.350 which pushed him far behind Tomita. Mizutori hit his gorgeous routine: layout Kovacs; Kolman; tucked Kovacs; Ryvalko. He scored 9.700 but could not pass Tsukahara. As the last competitor of this final, Tomita started his routine; his Kolman was a little close to the bar, and he was forced to bend his knees to follow it with a giant, but he was confident on his Stalder full to Stalder with 1 1/2 twist. He stuck his layout double-double dismount just as in the team final of the Olympics for 9.600. The score was not so high, but was good enough to win the final. That made three consecutive victories in the all-around for the first time in Chunichi Cup history. Tsukahara and Mizutori were second and third respectively, and the Japanese swept all three medals.

Kashima withdrew from rings and parallel bars because of his recently-broken ribs. He was planning to participate in the World Cup Finals in the coming week, so he still needed to take care of himself.

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