Chinese Herald News (reporter Kyono) The past week can be described as a turbulent week, first there was a large-scale outbreak of the epidemic in Japan, and then there was a super eruption of a volcano in Tonga, which caused concerns in many countries, including Japan, and another bomb-level news also occurred during this period.
On January 11, the world-renowned King of Japanese Gymnastics, Uchima Yukihei, announced his retirement through an agent company, and on the 14th, he attended a personal press conference and personally issued a formal retirement declaration, bidding farewell to the gymnastics world that once occupied more than half of his life.
Born in 1989 in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, Uchimura Hanghei just celebrated his 33rd birthday on January 3. Coupled with last year's Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, he has played in four consecutive Olympic Games, won a total of 3 gold, 4 silver and 7 medals, and is the only player in the history of world gymnastics to win the world gymnastics championships in the individual all-around six consecutive championships, this record has not been broken. As a result, Uchimura Hanghei was known as the "Almighty King" and the "New Prince of Gymnastics", and he was the first person in the history of Japanese gymnastics.
Uchimura's gymnastics is extremely aesthetic, highly artistic and at the same time able to ensure perfect quality, and is the master of Japanese gymnastics known for its "beauty". His retirement has not only aroused a lot of attention from the Japanese media and society, but also won the blessings of the sports community around the world. NBC called Uchimura "King Hanghei KING KOHEI" and described him as "the best gymnast of all time." The Associated Press also praised that "since the first participation in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Uchimura Hanghei has maintained elegance, precision and humility for more than 10 years, creating and achieving an unparalleled level of excellence in the men's gymnastics world."
Uchimura Hanghei, who began to learn gymnastics with his father, who was a gymnastics instructor at the age of 3, was not a particularly prominent gymnastics seedling in his childhood, but was just playful and active, and fully enjoyed the fun of sports. At the age of 15, in order to surpass his father, who had won the all-Japan high school gymnastics competition, he went to Tokyo alone to seek more professional training, and joined the famous Asahi Life Gymnastics Club, which began to enter the world of truly professional gymnastics, after some hard work, he finally completed his long-cherished wish in the last year of high school, won the first place in the individual all-around of the All-Japan Youth Gymnastics Competition, and began his journey to the international arena.
In the world gymnastics world, the era of the king of Uchimura Hanghei can be said to have begun with the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. At that time, at the age of 19, he won a silver medal in the individual all-around event and a silver medal in the gymnastics boys' group, and he was just emerging. At the Gymnastics World Championships the following year, the 20-year-old Uchimura won the individual all-around championship for the first time and firmly held this throne, sitting for six years, unprecedented. At the 2012 London Olympic Games four years after the Beijing Olympics, the spirited Uchimura won a total of three medals in the individual all-around gold medal, free gymnastics silver medal, gymnastics boy band silver medal, and after four years, he was already a veteran and won the personal all-around gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and even led the gymnastics boy band to win the gold medal, which can be said to be unbeatable, alone in the world, and as early as 2012, it was considered by many gymnasts in the gymnastics community to be the greatest gymnast in history.
Uchimura Hanghei once famously said that he wanted to do things at his own pace and rhythm. In fact, he also practiced his own philosophy, in order to achieve the world's first level, extremely hard training, for many years to maintain the largest training volume in Japan. Over the years, the game has brought him countless glories and applause, of course, there are many injuries that we can't see, and in recent years, it has even had to rely on constantly playing closed needles to suppress the pain to play. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, although the 32-year-old wanted to complete the final curtain in front of his own nationals, he lost the qualification for the medal due to his hand slipping in the horizontal bar event. At the World Championships in Kitakyushu last October, Uchimura, who was plagued by a shoulder injury, finished 6th on horizontal bars, and it was from then on that that that he strengthened his determination to retire from sports.
On January 14, 2022, in the music of "The Bridge of Glory" sung by the famous Japanese group Yuzu, Uchmura Kenpei appeared at the press conference of the retirement. When asked how he felt, he said, "There is no special feeling or special real feeling at present, but since I was 3 years old, I have been exposed to gymnastics, and in my 30-year gymnastics career, I have been practicing and competing as a national reinforcement player, carrying the sun flag of (Japan) on behalf of the country, and this experience, which occupies more than half of my life, makes me feel very proud, and I can maintain my confidence in the future no matter what I do." ”
Speaking of his 30 years of experience in sports career, Uchimura believes that it is not enough to just do the action well, but must become a person with both virtue and virtue. His father once told him, "Before being a gymnast, you couldn't do it without being a good person." For example, shohei Otani and Yusuke Yusuke, who are now loved by the japanese athletes around the world, are widely supported because their character as a person is worthy of everyone's respect. Even if an athlete achieves good results, if he does not have good character, he will not be respected, and any words will not have weight. He hopes that in the future, Japanese gymnasts will pay attention to both achievement and morality.
As for what is next, in addition to immediately assuming the new position of consultant and director of the Gymnastics Men's Division of the Japan Gymnastics Association's Permanent Council and continuing to promote gymnastics, Uchmura Will also perform a retirement match at the Tokyo Gymnasium on March 12, which is also the final farewell performance of his athlete's career. As the "king of all-around", he joked that it is now more difficult to complete the 6 events of the all-around than to be elected as a representative of the Tokyo Olympics. However, mayor Kiyoshige Okubo of Isahashi City, Nagasaki Prefecture, where he grew up, also said on the same day that the city government was discussing awarding the title of Uchimura Hanghei Sports Promotion Ambassador and Honorary Citizen. He also said: "I hope that in the future, Uchimura will not only be limited to gymnastics, but also convey the charm of sports to the people and strive to cultivate the next generation of talents."