Shatilov finishes 12th in all-around; Uchimura, gold

Alex Shatilov makes Israeli sports history, confident of winning Israels first ever gymnastics medal

By ALLON SINAI
Alex Shatilov 370 (photo credit: Reuters)
Alex Shatilov 370
(photo credit: Reuters)
Alex Shatilov continued his trailblazing ways on Wednesday, finishing in 12th place in the individual all-around final in London with a score of 88.432.
Shatilov recorded a score 0.6 lower than he did in qualification, but still made Israeli sports history with a very respectable finish in one of the Olympics showcase events.
The Israeli will be especially pleased with his showing in the floor apparatus, recording a result of 15.600, the best of the evening.
Shatilov takes part in the floor final on Sunday and is confident of winning Israel’s first ever medal in gymnastics.
“To finish in 12th place in the all-around competition isn’t too bad,” a humble Shatilov said. “I had to get rid of some energy after training in recent days without having a competition and now I can relax ahead of the floor final. I had a pretty good performance on the floor tonight, but there is still room for improvement.
“We will continue to work in the coming days and I will be at my best on Sunday. I’m optimistic.”
The all-around final was won by Japan’s Kohei Uchimura, who four years after letting the title slip through his fingers, finally claimed the Olympic gold he dreamed of to go with his three world crowns.
Pre-Games favorite Uchimura left the Beijing Olympics with silver after falling twice from the pommel horse and the apparatus proved his downfall again in the team event here on Monday when Japan had to settle for second place.
Everything went superbly to plan for the 23-year-old at the North Greenwich Arena on Wednesday, however, and he finished 1.659 points ahead of an excited Marcel Nguyen, who took Germany’s first silver medal in the event since the 1904 Games. American Danell Leyva stormed back from a poor start with a roof-raising horizontal bar routine to snatch the bronze from Ukraine’s Mykola Kuksenkov in the final rotation.
Reuters contributed to this report
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