sport.wikisort.org - Athlete

Kenzō Shirai (白井 健三, Shirai Kenzō, born August 24, 1996) is a Japanese former men’s athlete of artistic gymnastics (AG) who notably won team gold, and a bronze on individual vault (VT) at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. First Tsurumi Junior Gymnastics Club (GC), later Nippon Sport Science University (NSSU), he won extra majors at AG's world championships (WC)—initial specialist on tumbling and VT's hardest twisting runs, then individual all-arounder too.

This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience. (July 2021)

Kenzō Shirai
Shirai at the 2013 WC – Individual Vault Final
Nickname(s)	Mr Twister Twist Prince (Japanese)
Country represented	Japan
Born	(1996-08-24) August 24, 1996 (age 25) Yokohama, Kanagawa
Height	162 cm (5 ft 4 in)[1]
Weight	51 kg (112 lb)
Discipline	Men's artistic gymnastics
Level	Senior International Elite
Club	Tsurumi Junior GC, NSSU
Head coach(es)	Yoshiaki Hatakeda (club), Hisashi Mizutori (national)
Former coach(es)	Masaki Shirai (father), Norimi Shirai (mother)
Eponymous skills	Shirai or Shirai-Nguyen (FX): (back layout) quad full Shirai 2 (FX): forward (front layout) triple twist (or full) Shirai 3 (FX): triple-twisting double (back) layout Shirai or Shirai-Kim (VT): Yurchenko triple twist (TTY) Shirai 2 (VT): 3½-twisting (back layout) Yurchenko Shirai 3 (VT): Scherbo on– (back layout) double full off
Retired	June 16, 2021
Medal record Men's artistic gymnastics Representing  Japan Event 1st 2nd 3rd Summer Olympic Games 1 0 1 World Championships 5 3 3 Total 6 3 4 Olympic Games 2016 Rio de Janeiro Team 2016 Rio de Janeiro Vault World Championships 2013 Antwerp Floor Exercise 2015 Glasgow Team 2015 Glasgow Floor Exercise 2017 Montreal Floor Exercise 2017 Montreal Vault 2014 Nanning Team 2014 Nanning Floor Exercise 2018 Doha Floor Exercise 2017 Montreal All-Around 2018 Doha Team 2018 Doha Vault

Personal life

Practicing one 6-hour session 5–7 days per week,[2] Shirai did attend regular school—not very typical for an elite athlete. After Shirai graduated high school in March 2015, he was accepted to study at and compete out of the new senior home club of NSSU in southern border of Tokyo where many other Japanese athletes for both men's and women’s AG (WAG) would use Shirai’s university facilities to study and train too, which include his famous alumnus-mentor, Kōhei Uchimura. Family-influenced, Shirai started in gymnastics at a very young age by the parents Masaki and Norimi (first coaches and owners of original home base) plus both older gymnast brothers who helped guide his talents.[3] Shirai said, "For as long as I can remember, I was a gym rat." Instead of paying for daycare, parents brought him to the gym.[2] Event-dependent, his coaches were club or national. Love of trampoline developed twisting talent and mastery in its extreme combinations.

Career

More than any male gymnast of AG, 6 eponymous skills with 3 each on floor exercise (FX) and VT were officially named after Shirai, automatically or via petition, as he was the first man to successfully complete each at an international major. He would become the face of Japanese men's AG (MAG) at events globally in 2013–2018 until his injuries halted things. Just 24, he retired from competition on June 16, 2021, after not making own national squad at the Olympic Games (OG).

2013

Shirai (just turned 17) was youngest man competing at the 2013 AG WC.[4] On FX, he qualified first with a 16.233, 0.633 above next highest man, Diego Hypólito of Brazil. Shirai also became the youngest ever men's world FX champion then. His 22¼-twist routine’s 7.4 difficulty score (D-score) helped secure first major at only 17 years, 1 month and 11 days old. He had final score of 16.000, 0.4 victory margin above US silver medallist Jacob Dalton. Commentator Tim Daggett said on live-TV that "there is no way Shirai doesn't win this" right before Shirai started FX's final routine where he "twisted his way to first gold medal".[5] On VT, Shirai was again the top-ranked in qualifying, and just managed to place fourth in final.

3 out of Shirai‘s 6 eponymous skills were officially verified here in Antwerp, Belgium. He would successfully compete the Shirai or Shirai-Kim on VT (Yurchenko—all skills with round-off [RO]–back handspring [BH] entries into vault originated by USSR’s Natalia Yurchenko after 1982 Moscow event—triple full, or triple-twisting Yurchenko [TTY]), Shirai or Shirai-Nguyen on FX (or quadruple-twisting [back] straight), and also Shirai 2 on FX (or [front] triple-twisting straight forwards).

Popular to all peers with constant presence, continual participation and approachable disposition, Shirai kept refining his quad full on FX since he first did it with hard landing as a high-school sophomore at 14. With uncanny “twisting" abilities, he usually performed FX routines with D-score values that went well beyond 7.0 in the 2013–2016 Code of Points (CoP) assessed earlier by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), body governing all competitive-gymnastic disciplines.

2014

With Shirai, Japan's men took the team silver medal at the 2014 AG WC in Nanning—only 0.1 behind host nation China. Both the scores of 15.766 on floor and 15.400 on vault were lower than what was expected of him. On individual events, he made the FX and VT event finals again, but was not able to deliver the very best. On FX, despite having a far greater D-score, he continued struggling with his execution score (E-score). In his routine’s third pass, an out-of-bound step had resulted in receiving 0.1 penalty point, and finally costing him the gold medal, just 0.017 behind Russia's Denis Ablyazin. On VT, Shirai achieved top executions, but difficulty penalty on the second vault also dragged him down till fourth rank.[6]

2015

In October 2015, Shirai competed at the 2015 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. In the team event finals, he made contributions on the two signature apparatuses of his, floor exercise and vault, and helped Japan to capture that year’s team gold medal with a combined score of 270.818, outscoring the silver-medal team from Britain by nearly ½ point. Shirai's floor exercise score in the team all-around (AA) finals (16.325) was highest among all gymnasts—lone score exceeding 16 points with their next highest at over ½-a-point less. Shirai’s vault score of 15.533 was also the team AA finals' second highest posted on this apparatus behind the 15.700 put up by Russian Denis Ablyazin, who narrowly defeated Shirai for the gold last year too, in the individual floor exercise event finals at 2014's WC. Shirai qualified for the same two individual event finals again. He did so on floor in first place with 16.100—0.734 above next top scorer, China‘s Deng Shudi (15.366). On October 31, 2015, Shirai won his second WC floor title. In the individual floor event finals, he performed another very hard routine, scoring 16.233, ahead of Briton Max Whitlock and Spain‘s Rayderley Zapata. Shirai's 0.667 victory margin over Whitlock was widest among all male finalists there, bettering Shirai's 2013 WC results.

Shirai's latest floor routine with even more extreme D-score start value of 7.6 was once again highest among all individual floor finalists. The resulting huge 17.6 base score was due to his high connection bonuses of various skill combinations, and also by ending many passes blindly facing forwards that risked his combination lines. His routines till then only consisted of "single somersault" (one revolution) skills, but it was at this event that he began displaying additional abilities to execute "double somersault" (two revolutions) skills consistently. E.g. the Ri Jong Song on floor (triple-twisting double back [tucked] somersault, or aka a "triple-double"; originated by North Korea's Ri Jong Song at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens) with a high G (0.7) D-score, the second highest value that was given then to skills for all events except on vault in artistic gymnastics to be the floor routine's second pass. Shirai then needed to amend the existing second pass of "front full twist punch Shirai 2" to come third, and also eliminate the routine's initial third pass of "RO–whip back–triple twist" completely. The new order of updated passes—1) RO–BH–3½ twist punch double twist, 2) RO–BH–Ri Jong Song, 3) forward layout full punch Shirai 2, 4) RO–BH–2½ twist punch 2½ twist, 5) RO–side somersault full, and 6) RO–BH–Shirai.

In the individual vault event finals, Shirai placed seventh with the average combined total of 14.516. He had posted competitive E-scores among the finalists, but both Shirai's vaults had the lower D-scores of 5.6 and 5.2 for 2015, lacking then the higher numbers necessary to achieve the bigger average combined score needed and realistically challenge the world's top vaulters for a spot on the podium when every other vault completed in the individual final had a score of 6.0 in difficulty or above. One detail to note here of Shirai's worst vault final result at the WC since his 2013 debut—he started both his two planned vaults normally, but due to his poor landing position of the "Yurchenko" first vault, Shirai or Shirai-Kim, with 6.0 D-score (3 twists), judges downgraded it to the Shewfelt or Amanar with 5.6 D-score (2½ twists) for incomplete twisting,[7] resulting in Shirai's team decision to simplify the “Tsukahara” next or second vault from the Driggs with 5.6 D-score (2½ twists) to Akopian with 5.2 D-score (2 twists—originated by Artur Akopian of the former Soviet Union at the WC earlier in the 1980s) since chances of Shirai medalling at that moment in the competition had then suddenly become mathematically extremely unlikely in an instant, effectively due to the initial difficulty loss of 0.4 on his higher-scoring vault. These scores, 5.6 and 5.2, also happen to correspond perfectly then to the lower D-scores of their respective Shirai or Shirai-Kim, and Driggs in the CoP next quad. North Korea's Ri Se Gwang (15.450) defended his gold, Marian Drăgulescu of Romania (15.400) won silver, and American Donnell Whittenburg (15.350) took bronze.

Shirai started competing with childhood home club, Tsurumi Junior Gymnastics Club. On December 12–13, 2015, he was long a regular on the AG competition circuit representing his university and new home club of NSSU when Shirai was thus sent to the FIG's 2015 Toyota International Cup (or Gymnastics Competition) in Toyota City, Japan. Even though a comparatively to smaller international competition, they did have a good pool of gymnasts on the roster with some importance because he had successfully completed his third original skill, one of the currently two most difficult skills on floor for men. Via petition, the skill has since taken Shirai's name, and been officially named the Shirai 3 on floor. Practically, it is the straight Ri Jong Song on floor (or triple-twisting double layout), an H (0.8) second "double somersault" (two revolutions) skill, which would later be incorporated into a new floor routine in the next 2017–2021 quad. His routine's passes in this quad would stay unchanged. This was one of the last competing opportunities in 2015’s season as athletes used it to help time their peak performances when the Olympics were fast-approaching. On that individual-apparatus-only event, Shirai had taken two golds in the individual floor and vault apparatus finals, posting scores of 15.700 and 15.225 respectively.

Due to its extreme difficulty of the Shirai 3 on floor, Shirai also achieved the very rare honour then of sharing with Andreas Bretschneider of Germany, Valeri Liukin of the former Soviet Union, and Donnell Whittenburg of the United States to own one, until just a few years ago, of only 4 longstanding and most-difficult-highest-scoring competition-verified original skills for all of men to secure the once official top-scoring assignment of H (0.8) in D-score from the FIG. At present, Bretschneider, Liukin and Whittenburg successfully originated the Bretschneider on the horizontal or high bar (HB) (or Kovác—release skill with full-twisting tucked integrated into each of its skills, executed by Péter Kovács of Hungary at the 1979 European Championships) double full, Liukin on FX (or triple tucked back), and Whittenburg on rings (or triple piked back dismount) respectively. The FIG had once highly expected Bretschneider to progress his very own skill into the layout position—already named it the Bretschneider 2 on high bar, suggesting it may obtain MAG's new top D-score of I (0.9) to mirror WAG's only existing top-level floor skill then, but he could not do so. That WAG's sole top I (0.9) level skill then—the Moors on floor, or double-twisting double back layout, by Victoria Moors of Canada, who originated it at the 2013 WC.

2016

2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro

On August 6, 2016, at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Japan's men qualified first for team AA finals as 2015 WC form continued peaking. They took team gold two days later in the event finals at Rio Olympic Arena with a 274.094 total. Only 19 years, 11 months and 15 days old, Shirai contributed top FX (16.133) and VT (15.633) scores to team total,[8] becoming Japan’s youngest male gymnast ever to win Olympic gold. Performing well, his score strengths began with vault’s best TTY stuck landing, just to top it with "one of his best" FX routines (0.533 above next score)—helped the team mentally to perform better with each routine. Russia led after two events. Japan ranked sixth with pommel-horse fall to end first rotation, fifth after second, second in topping third (VT), and first from fifth onwards. Shirai posted team final’s top VT (15.633) with best E-score (9.633) despite lower D-score (6.0) than Russia's Denis Ablyazin (6.4) and Japan's Kōhei Uchimura (6.2). Japanese men got top-rankings on FX, VT and HB, posting FX's top 3 with VT's first and third scores as Japan (274.094) beat Russia (271.453) and China (271.122). Male members of Japan’s 2016 Olympic team were Ryōhei Katō, Shirai (only one new not at last Olympics), Yūsuke Tanaka, Uchimura (captain) and Koji Yamamuro.

Shirai appeared in good form as he qualified for the individual floor and vault finals. As twice/reigning floor world champion then owning a 7.6-D-score routine, he was favourite to win floor final but placed disappointing fourth (15.366) with landing troubles in 3 of 6 passes. His team final floor score would beat the winner by ½ a point. Preparing to include latest eponymous floor skill, the Shirai 3, into the quad’s routines, he could have achieved another next-level-7.7 D-score in the 2013–2016 CoP. Britain’s Max Whitlock (15.633), the gymnast that Shirai had easily beaten only 9½ months ago on the individual floor event at 2015's WC by some significant margin, won gold, and Diego Hypólito (15.533) and Arthur Mariano (15.433), both of host Brazil, were second and third. Increasingly noisy/hostile home crowd boos and jeers during non-Brazilian routines towards the end was a disgrace—some shaken finalists got denied chance to excel at Olympics, but Shirai with America's Sam Mikulak, top qualifier to finish last, had it the worst. Both said blatantly partial crowd input left them feeling "alone" and "rattled".[9] Lucky to perform early, Whitlock was spared. Shirai was capable, in-form and sufficiently experienced (twice floor world champion)—en route to win individual floor gold, but unruly crowd compromised his chance.

In the next day's individual vault event finals, Shirai got an average combined total of 15.449 (15.833 and 15.066 for his two vaults—the former being their top-scoring vault of that final), and tied the legendary Marian Drăgulescu of Romania with the third highest numeric total of their event final. The tie-breaker had worked in Shirai's favour this time, to secure him bronze, edging out Drăgulescu, who also competed well to score the same combined average, but missed making that critical deciding factor for breaking ties then, which was the single top numeric combined total (15.833 vs 15.633) on any of the final's already performed vaults, into finishing in fourth. With defending champion, Yang Hak Seon of South Korea, out injured, Ri Se Gwang of North Korea (15.691), whose AG federation was banned from competitions in much of 2012 amid continual age falsification violations by their female athletes, won gold while Ablyazin (15.516) successfully defended his silver. In vault qualifying, Shirai, Ukraine's Igor Radivilov, Drăgulescu and Russia's Nikita Nagornyy in that order placed third through sixth, but all scored third highest (15.283), albeit Radivilov and Drăgulescu did incur a 0.1 penalty each for one-foot-out landings on their second vaults. Shirai also used own single top score (15.466) again then to rank ahead.

In Rio, Shirai successfully executed a second new vault too, now officially named the Shirai 2, or Yurchenko 3½ twist, which received the second highest value of 6.4 difficulty in the FIG's 2013–2016 CoP at the time with top D-score of 7.0 awarded ahead to the Radivilov, or front handspring triple (tucked) somersault, originated by the 2012 Olympic vault bronze medallist and vault specialist, Igor Radivilov. Naming credit was given despite him sitting his skill down during individual vault final, just have it be totally banned from competition and removed from next quad's CoP due to a high risk of injury when competing/training that skill. So, Shirai now shares the honour of owning at least one of only four officially named top-6.0-D-score original skills with the 2012 and 2016 Olympic vault champions—Yang has one and Ri two. The five hardest vaults then had identical top 6.0 D-score in next 2017–2021 CoP—the Shirai 2, Ri Se Gwang, Ri Se Gwang 2, Yang Hak Seon and Tsukahara 3½. One pre-assessed vault at this time did achieve an even higher 6.4 D-score awaiting verification, which was the full-twisting double Tsukahara or Ri Se Gwang piked. Only one out of five vaults mentioned above (the former Shirai 2) had ever been successfully completed by its originator in competition then—not again since the OG.

2017

On February 22–25, 2017, Shirai competed abroad at the individual-apparatus-only-meet 2017 Melbourne World Cup (WCup) in Melbourne, Australia, with expanded programme, qualifying for more individual apparatus finals on the horizontal bar, still rings (SR) and parallel bars (PB). In rings qualifying, he finished tenth or last with low execution decreasing enough the combined score to not qualify for that event final. In parallel bars qualifying, Shirai placed third, and qualified for the event finals. Despite a fall in his routine during the horizontal bar qualifying, he finished in fourth place due to mistakes made by rival athletes, and ended up in the event finals too. On the individual parallel bars event, Shirai won silver in that final by posting the second highest E-score (8.433) for a combined score of 14.433. A Chinese gymnast, Zou Jingyuan (15.166), secured the gold while Ferhat Arican of Turkey (13.566) took home the bronze. In the individual horizontal bar event finals, Shirai managed to capture the gold medal with a 13.933 combined total—thanks to his other skill with second highest E-score (8.333), plus even more errors made by other competitors. During final, Mitchell Morgans of Australia (13.400) with another one of Shirai's teammates, Yusuke Saito (13.333), claimed the silver and bronze medals respectively.

Still riding on some of the momentum from all that preparation for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Shirai was in good competition form. In the individual floor and vault qualifications, he placed first and qualified for those two event finals of his seasoned routines/skills. In the individual floor event finals, Shirai easily won the gold with his extreme score of 14.700 largely because of the routine's highest score number of 7.2 in D-score—the second highest only 6.5 among all the finalists. This is also the first competition where Shirai fully integrated the Shirai 3 on floor with D-score of H (0.8) he originated back in 2015 into his competitive floor routines. His passes—1) RO–BH–Shirai 3, 2) RO–BH–Ri Jong Song, 3) RO–BH–2½ punch 2½, 4) front full punch Shirai 2, 5) RO–BH–3½ punch full, and 6) RO–BH–Shirai. Mu Jile of China (14.466) secured the silver medal while Arican (14.033) won his second bronze down under. Lastly, in the individual vault event finals, Shirai won his second gold medal of the competition with the average combined score of 14.916 because of the two highest execution numbers of 9.500 and 9.533 he posted in this apparatus final. Christopher Remkes of Australia (14.883) took home the silver while another of Shirai's countryman, Wataru Tanigawa (14.566), captured the bronze.

Just like in Toyota City, this earlier/lower-profile FIG World Cup competition also held some significance because in Melbourne, Shirai had successfully completed yet one more original element—his sixth in total—to then be officially named the Shirai 3 on vault automatically. Thus, he currently has more skills bearing his name than any other male gymnast in history, and is second only to Russia‘s Svetlana Khorkina, who holds the all-time record to have nine original skills inherit her name across their four events for WAG. The Shirai 3 on vault, or AKA "full on–double full off" in practice, was first given D-score of 5.8 in the 2013–2016 CoP. Technically, the skill has a RO–full-twisting BH, or Scherbo (entry skill up on vault—originated by Vitaly Scherbo of the former Soviet Union, then Unified Team, and finally Belarus early in the 1990s), approach onto vaulting platform “on” into (straight back) double twist “off” it thereafter. Rarer term but it can also be known as a “double-twisting Scherbo”. To add the Shirai 3 on FX onto an existing floor routine, Shirai began initially by switching it in to his starting position as a first pass with the Ri Jong Song staying as second pass to be performed right after. To reflect the higher difficulty with all the updates and upgrades, the rest of the floor routine was adjusted accordingly as well.

Yet to be realised, the next vault in that progression—RO–full-twisting BH onto vault into 2½ twist off, or AKA "full on–2½ off" in practice—was assessed ahead with a 5.8 D-score that many opined as a bit too low since the Li Xiao Peng on vault, or AKA "½ on–2½ off" in practice (originated by China's great gymnast Li Xiao Peng in the 2000s), has also long carried a 5.8 D-score. "Full on–2½ off" has more twists and is by nature more complex/harder to execute. Hence, difficulty should be higher. Like any frequently reassessed skill across all vaults, D-score of the Shirai with Shirai 2 and 3 was lowered to respective 5.6 with 6.0 and 5.4 in 2017–2021 quad too.

In October 2017, Shirai showed he retained more of the Olympic form when he competed at the 2017 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Montreal, Canada. No team events were held, as it is customary since 2005 at the WC in the year right after the Olympics. Shirai would eventually win three medals on a full competition programme to include owning a final routine for last holdout event on pommel horse (PH). He then became eligible for the individual AA (IAA) competition in Montreal, taking first ever world IAA medal (bronze) behind Xiao Ruoteng (86.933) and Lin Chaopan (86.488), both of China.[10] Shirai's combined total of 86.431 has 15.733 on floor, 13.433 on pommel horse, 13.666 on still rings, 15.000 on vault, 14.633 on parallel bars, and 13.966 on high bar. With the top numbers on floor and vault among AA finalists, Shirai had also easily defended the individual world floor title from two years ago when the WC were last held with a final score of 15.633,[11] out-tumbling the silver medallist, Artem Dolgopyat of Israel—just managing a score of 14.533—by over a point. Shirai's final unassailable victory margin of 1.1 became their widest one yet at the WC, outdistancing himself from his rivals even more than the 2015 performance did. His passes stayed consistent after originating the Shirai 3 on floor.

Shirai also qualified second for the vault's individual event finals with an average combined total of 14.949 but subsequently won his first world vault title by putting up the highest average combined scores of 14.900, 15.200 and 14.600 for his first and second numbers respectively,[12] in a very exciting/close last round of competition. After the Olympics, Shirai returned to compete both of his usual vaults—the Shirai or Shirai-Kim, and Driggs—where he posted the top E-score of 9.600, and 9.400. His vaults' D-scores had since been lowered from 6.0 and 5.6 (2013–2015) in the last 2013–2016 quad to 5.6 and 5.2 (2017–2018) in the FIG's next 2017–2021 CoP. Shirai did manage to win with the absolute slimmest of victory margin by just 0.001 after the 2012 Olympic bronze medallist on vault, event specialist Igor Radivilov of Ukraine, came up short and finished with the closest possible second highest average combined score of 14.899. Shirai did also get a little help when the top qualifier and 2012 Olympic champion on vault, South Korea's Yang Hak Seon, withdrew with a hamstring injury after outscoring Shirai by a significant margin of 0.334 with the average combined score of 15.283 in qualifying, which was three times more than the margin of any two other qualifiers. These score differences were only about 0.1.

It is also worth noting that Shirai has executed two identical vaults as he has done since this event debut at the 2013 WC on every individual vault event, even though he has successfully completed more difficult and higher-scoring vaults in competition—specifically the Shirai 2 and Shirai 3 with the former heavily contributing to his bronze medal win at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and latter slightly less his gold in the individual vault event final at the 2017 Melbourne World Cup. Also, Hidetaka Miyachi of Japan took advantage of injuries on German Andreas Bretschneider, who was beaten to the punch here in 2017, originating the first double-twisting layout Kovac, or now officially named the Miyachi on high bar—only skill then given the new top level I (0.9) D-score value, and created in advance specially for it by the FIG—successfully first on home soil at the All-Japan Apparatus Championships in Takasaki, Japan, before he petitioned governing body to officially verify skill completion and name adoption. I (0.9), the new top D-score then, was created to assist an existing MAG scoring system more accurately reflect the very extreme difficulty of the Miyachi on high bar, which got verified here at the 2017 WC then. As a result, they had updated MAG’s scoring system levels again mirror WAG's too.

2018

On March 3, 2018, Shirai started this competition season for 2018 when he accepted the invitation to participate in the American Cup FIG Individual All-Around World Cup 2018, or 2018 American Cup in Hoffman Estates (suburb of Chicago), United States. In this only-IAA competition, Shirai had ranked sixth with a combining score total of 81.498, despite posting top floor and vault on his signature events with respective scores of 15.066 and 14.966, and second highest, tying Yul Moldauer of the United States, on parallel bars with 14.500 behind leader Petro Pakhniuk of Ukraine with 14.933. Each score of Shirai, particularly on pommel horse, was significantly weaker when compared to all other finalists. Hovering sufficiently lower, Shirai's numbers on each of the apparatuses were a 11.100 on pommel horse (lowest on that apparatus with top number posted nearly three full points higher), 13.700 on still rings, and 12.166 on the horizontal bar. As defending, and eventual, champion of the competition, Moldauer scored an 85.964, outscoring Shirai by a fair margin of almost 4½ points because Moldauer was able to achieve one of the top three scores on every apparatus—the highest scorer on still rings, third highest on vault, tie for the second highest on parallel bars, and second highest on the remaining apparatuses.

On April 14, 2018, Shirai competed his spring's last FIG-sanctioned World Cup competition with home advantage at the FIG Individual All-Around World Cup 2018, or 2018 Tokyo World Cup in Tokyo, Japan. Within that group of competing athletes at different experience levels from several world continents across many countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas, Shirai won the first ever IAA title with gold medal at the IAA competition on an officially FIG-owned event, scoring a combined 86.064. Score on every apparatus—15.200 on floor exercise, 13.533 on pommel horse, 13.766 on still rings, 14.966 on vault, 14.466 on parallel bars, and 14.133 on high bar. Among these scores, Shirai also put up one of the top three numbers on all of his apparatuses with the highest values on floor exercise, pommel horse and vault, and second highest on parallel bars and the horizontal bar too behind the two scores of 14.533 posted by Russia's Artur Dalaloyan on the former and 14.500 by American Sam Mikulak on the latter apparatuses, as well as third highest on rings behind the values of 14.366 and 14.300 scored by Dalaloyan and Wataru Tanigawa of Japan. Great efforts towards the end by first-time winners, Tanigawa and Mikulak, who took home silver and bronze respectively with combined scores of 84.399 and 84.098.

On May 19–20, 2018, Shirai competed at home in his lower-profile, non-FIG, only-IAA but regular-circuit event too—primarily for all Japanese coaches to help assess the level of fitness and preparation of each local gymnast hoping to be included onto the national team for namely the WC—at the 2018 NHK Trophy in Tokyo, Japan. Although it is not an event organised by the FIG, Japan still requires participation with favourable results at the competition as a prerequisite in order to be considered for the Japanese team at the next WC. If an athlete had to miss the event but still want represent Japan then, he or she must secure a waiver, which is rarely granted. Shirai won the silver medal here with a combined score of 257.895 including floor's top score of 15.433 as well as third highest of 14.833 on vault, just behind Takumi Sato competing only on floor, rings and vault, and vault specialist Hidenobu Yonekura competing only on his one specialty apparatus. For Shirai's other events, those scores were 13.600 on pommel horse, 13.366 on rings, 14.433 on parallel bars, and 14.066 on high bar respectively. Gold medal went to the legend Kōhei Uchimura, who had come from behind to win with the combined total of 258.629, which also included the top score (14.966) on high bar, and second highest (14.633) on floor.[13]

On October 25–November 3, 2018, Shirai competed at the 2018 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Doha, Qatar—the first ever WC held in the Middle East. As Shirai lost competition form, resulting in less success that year than the last, he still took one silver and two bronzes even when he simplified to easier FX routines. Shirai contributed to Japan’s team bronze on FX, VT and HB with 14.933, 14.966 and 13.966 respectively. He also got into the individual finals on the AA, FX and VT. On the IAA event, he could not repeat comparable success to the bronze in 2017, only placing seventh in the finals with a 84.531 due to some weaker events like PH. Shirai's final scores on all six events—14.900 on FX, 12.533 on PH, 13.666 on SR, 15.166 on VT, 14.266 on PB, and 14.000 on HB. He has since debuted a simpler-new-with-similar-difficulty-and-one-pass-less floor routine earlier on 29 April at 2018's All-Japan AA Championships by combining the Ri Jong Song and third passes into one harder combination—more connection bonuses. This 7.2-D-score routine was 7.1, but could help to slightly slow body's wear and tear in training/competition. The passes here—1) RO–BH–Shirai 3, 2) RO–BH–1½ punch Shirai 2 punch full, 3) RO–BH–3½ punch double full, 4) RO–BH–2½ punch 2½, and 5) RO–BH–Shirai.

In the individual floor and vault event finals, Shirai was likewise not able to defend his two 2017 gold medals, and could only manage the respective silver and bronze. Shirai posted a combined score of 14.866 in the individual floor exercise apparatus finals, just behind Russia‘s Artur Dalaloyan (14.900), who was the 2018 defending IAA event champion and just barely outplaced Shirai via the cleaner routine. Shirai's even easier floor routine with a D-score of only 6.8 was a bit lower than usual but still more than Dalaloyan's (6.2), of which higher E-score (8.700 vs 8.066) bettered enough Shirai’s combined total. 6 passes in Shirai’s floor routine again then began with 1) RO–BH–Ri Jong Song, 2) front full punch Shirai 2, 3) RO–BH–2½ punch 2½, 4) RO–BH–Shirai, 5) RO–BH–3½ punch full, and 6) RO–BH–triple full to finish. Shirai managed a comparably smaller average combined score of 14.675 in the individual vault event finals because of lower designated D-scores assigned for those skills he executed, particularly the second, behind the eventual silver medallist Dalaloyan (14.883) and gold medallist Ri Se Gwang (14.933) of North Korea, the 2016 Olympic vault champion. Shirai's two vaults had lower D-scores of good significance then—5.6 and 5.2—if compared to the 2018 gold-medal-winning pair of 6.0 each.

It may be appropriate to remind that Shirai competed a significantly simplified floor routine, at times even feeling like it was prepared in a rush, for his standards in the individual floor finals. Shirai's floor-routine-D-scores till then in this quad were always consistently valued 7.2 or 7.1 previously, but at these WC, it was reduced to 6.8. Although that D-score was still the highest among all finalists, the opening loss of up to 0.4 from the routine's combined total was sufficient to effectively lose the gold, but took the silver instead in 2018. Winner Dalaloyan, even with a comparably lower 6.2 routine difficulty, did outscore Shirai via E-score, but only by 0.034 in the end. Also, it is worth informing that Shirai always competed the same two different-family vaults—first a Yurchenko–then forward-entry Tsukahara—in each individual vault final at all but one of the FIG's 2013–2018 major events (every WC but not 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where he captured bronze after he upgraded to the Shirai 2 on vault, or 3½-twisting Yurchenko, for the backward-entry skill), competing better generally from one year to the next. Shirai had continued improving on the standings in the individual vault finals every year. In 2013–2015, Shirai placed fourth, fourth and seventh while in 2017–2018, he won the gold and bronze medals.

2019

On April 7, 2019, Shirai started season by participating in the FIG Individual All-Around World Cup 2019, or 2019 Tokyo World Cup in Tokyo, Japan. Like 2018, Shirai was supposed to start competition at the 2019 American Cup, but withdrew to treat a left ankle injury,[14] which he sustained about a week before he started travelling. Due to the injury, Shirai simplified certain skills in his routines for the competition here in Tokyo, which became especially noticeable when he performed on floor—his strongest signature event—as he recycled, using portions of his past routines. Changes included starting his floor routine with a RO–BH–3½ twist–punch double twist opening pass instead of the Shirai 3, one of two hardest floor skills for men, and finishing with only a triple full last pass instead of the Shirai, his infamous quad twist. Shirai ultimately failed to defend his gold medal from last year, but did manage to capture bronze with the combined total of 82.964, despite still recovering from injury. The 2018 bronze medallist, Sam Mikulak of the United States (86.599), improved his standings, and won gold. Japan's Wataru Tanigawa (85.665) defended his silver. Ex-athlete/TV analyst Tim Daggett opined, “(M)an, myth, legend...capable of doing...many things...people thought were...literally impossible before Shirai did them.”[15]

On April 26–28, 2019, Shirai competed at the 2019 All-Japan AA Championships, one of two closely-held AA-only meets in Chofu (Tokyo metro), Japan. He did make the event finals in 22nd place but finish in 30th. Shirai also managed just one score in the top three on any apparatus, second highest on floor (14.533) behind Kazuki Minami (14.633), who just competed on floor. This event's respective gold, silver and bronze medallists—Kakeru Tanigawa with a combined score of 84.699, Kazuma Kaya with a combined score of 84.664, and Kazuyuki Takeda with a combined score of 84.498—had Tanigawa managing the second highest score for pommel horse while Takeda had achieved the third highest for still rings too. After assessing their winning scores, it shows there is much to be desired in being able to post numbers that are above average for every apparatus. Shirai's remaining scores in that final—12.900 on pommel horse, 12.800 on still rings, 14.166 on vault, 13.733 on parallel bars, 11.300 on the horizontal bar, and 79.432 for the total AA combined score. Injury had persisted to adversely affect the recent competition performances, and thus reflected in the results. Event number differences between top apparatus scores and Shirai's were particularly wide on pommel horse, still rings and the horizontal bar.

On May 18–19, 2019, Shirai competed at the 2019 NHK Trophy, also in Chofu (Tokyo metro), Japan, to repeat 2018's participation in only-IAA event. Due to lingering injury issues with the left ankle, he was unable to perform as well in the competition in comparison to most others, which would also include his performance here last year. Shirai placed 23rd with a 243.794 combined score. He was unable to achieve a top three score on any of the apparatuses, not even on his signatures of floor or vault. Shirai's scores on each respective apparatus were 14.500 on floor, 12.533 on pommel horse, 12.800 on still rings, 14.566 on vault, 14.066 on parallel bars, and 13.066 on high bar. Kakeru Tanigawa (254.363), Wataru Tanigawa (254.128) and Kazuma Kaya (254.126), who took their gold, silver and bronze,[16] were not able to score too, if at all, more than only one of the top three numbers on any apparatus, which may also indicate that none of the 2019 gymnasts was able to do particularly well that year at the competition. Kakeru Tanigawa was only able to score the second highest number (14.733) on floor, Wataru Tanigawa was also only able to score the third highest (14.866) on vault, and similar to Shirai, Kazuma Kaya likewise did not manage to post a top three number on any of his apparatuses at that event too.

On June 21–23, 2019, Shirai competed at the 2019 All-Japan Apparatus Championships in Takasaki, Japan, hoping he would do well enough to secure a spot on the Japanese men’s national team and compete as part of the next world championships held in the autumn of 2019. It was ultimately not meant to be his season though. Shirai qualified for three individual event finals, which were floor exercise, vault and the horizontal bar, ranking second, fourth and sixth respectively. In such finals, he proceeded to finish in third (14.900), fifth (14.433) and eighth (11.200) place respectively for each of these apparatuses too. Ranking ahead of Shirai on floor exercise were Kazuki Minami with a total score of 15.033, and Naoto Hayasaka with a total score of 15.000. Their top finisher on vault was Keitoro Okubo, posting the average combined score of 15.233, and the winner of the horizontal bar was Hirohito Kahama with a total score of 14.766. Shirai's floor D-score numbers had remained on top among all the finalists. However, his execution needed some additional work, and could have been cleaner, which was thus reflected on the routine's E-score. Shirai's vault D-score values were comparatively lesser—only one with the lowest 5.2—and needed higher base numbers before he could seriously challenge the top vaulters.

In 2019, for the first time since Shirai's international debut at 2013’s WC, he did not make the Japanese men's national AG squad and was not included to compete at the 2019 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, on October 4–13, 2019. Shirai's 2019 performances at competition were noticeably slowed down by this stubborn injury to a nagging left ankle, which resulted in his inability to compete optimally during the 2019 All-Japan Apparatus Championships when the results there and at the 2019 NHK Trophy decided which gymnasts to join the Japanese national team at the 2019 WC. His best chance was to grab one of two spots available to Japan's individual men, namely for one or both of Shirai's signature events, FX and/or VT, but he only managed to place 3rd and 5th on individual FX and VT, which made him not qualify for the WC, and then unable to defend his 2018 world medals. Since Shirai was not the sole high-profile absentee as Kōhei Uchimura was missing too due to injuries, the Japanese men did send a fairly inexperienced squad to the 2019 WC where men's competition was dominated by other countries. Shirai worked hard in returning to competition form after an extended period of time to try and recover from various injuries. Hence, he got very rusty on all the events.

On December 14–15, 2019, Shirai again competed at the local 2019 Toyota International Cup (or Gymnastics Competition) in Aichi, Japan, from a last four years' win streak, in which Shirai had won each individual floor event before then (2015–2018), and the individual vault event in three past successive seasons (2015–2017) too. He did not compete vault in 2019 due to what ended up being the start of some rather stubborn injuries and began truly affect all levels of performance in competition. Injuries extending into 2019, Shirai still qualified first on floor and second on vault for the respective finals, but did not compete, withdrawing from all the events to end.

2020/2021

On December 10–13, 2020, Shirai, a postgraduate at NSSU, competed again at the 2020 All-Japan Championships in Takasaki, Japan, but not as well as in seasons past, ranking only 18th and 4th on individual AA (167.196) and FX (15.166). Their national AG federation repurposed this event as another Olympic-qualifying chance since officials identified most prepared roster nearest to start of the COVID-affected 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo that got put off until next summer with a team of six men—four on team AA event with a bronze at the 2018 WC where Shirai contributed scores on FX, VT and HB to team total, and two more on specialist events.[17] Due to public health issues of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo got delayed for one year until July 23–August 8, 2021.[18] The pandemic postponed and/or cancelled many Olympic-qualifying events too.[19] Shirai reluctantly started to consider retirement in 2020, a result of existing injuries, but back early 2021 to compete at the 2021 All-Japan Championships, still trying to qualify for home Games. Post qualifying failure, he announced immediate retirement from AG on June 16, 2021, which also missed the 2021 AG WC held locally in replacement city of Kitakyushu, leaving behind a lasting legacy of 13 major medals and 6 eponyms.

Competitive history

On top of FX and VT, Shirai competed in other individual event finals too, but did not make it into any at majors. Below are results at every WC and OG in 2013–2018:

Year	Competition	All-Around		MAG's Individual Apparatuses
		Team	IAA	FX	PH	SR	VT	PB	HB
2013
	AG World Championships	N/A					4
2014
	AG World Championships
2015
	AG World Championships						7
2016
	Summer Olympic Games			4
2017
	AG World Championships	N/A
2018
	AG World Championships		7

Eponymous skills

Shirai had been given official name credit in six original skills. Difficulty values listed below are according to Shirai’s latest competing CoP (2017–2021) quad for MAG:

Apparatus	Name(s)	Description(s)	Difficulty	Verification	Competition Achieved
Floor Exercise	Shirai or Shirai-Nguyen*	backward quadruple-twisting (back) straight somersault, or (back layout) quadruple twist (or full) somersault backwards	F (0.6)	Automatic	2013 AG World Championships
	Shirai 2	forward triple-twisting (front) straight somersault, or (front layout) triple twist (or full) somersault forwards
	Shirai 3	backward triple-twisting double (back) straight somersault, and AKA a “triple-double" (back) layout somersault backwards	H (0.8)	Petition1	2015 Toyota International Cup
Vault	Shirai or Shirai-Kim*	RO–BH (Yurchenko) on into (straight back) triple twist (or full) off, or a triple-twisting (back layout) Yurchenko (TTY)	5.6	Automatic	2013 AG World Championships
	Shirai 2	RO–BH (Yurchenko) on into (straight back) 3½ twist off, or 3½-twisting (back layout) Yurchenko	6.0		2016 Summer Olympic Games
	Shirai 3	RO–full-twisting BH (Scherbo) on into double-twisting (back) straight off, and AKA “full on–(back layout) double full off”	5.4		2017 Melbourne World Cup[20]

*These original skills have officially taken naming of two originators, but evolving skill factors like one athlete's greater success abbreviated name to just that gymnast.
¹Except the Shirai 3 on floor that got verified through the FIG’s petition process, all others above automatically received official names after the originating FIG meets.

Japan's Takahiro Goshima had progressed the Shirai 2 to Goshima on floor, or front layout 3 to 3½ twist, with G (0.7) D-score at the 2017 Stuttgart Team Challenge. Although the Shirai on vault found success competing since 2015 by athletes like Briton Max Whitlock and China’s Zhang Chenglong, Shirai always topped E-scores. Succeeded Kazuhito Tanaka on Japanese men's 2012 Olympic AG team in 2016, still just Shirai did ever successfully perform 4 of the 6 originals through 2021 quad. Shirai originated the Shirai 2 on vault at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, one skill that nobody in 2017–2021 completed to success in competition since.

Miscellaneous

In October 2017 with the 2017 WC having just happened in Montreal, Canada, a social media video showed Shirai’s highly dexterous completion of the Mustafina on floor, or triple Y-turn,[21] with E (0.5) D-score in the 2017–2021 CoP for WAG that was already officially named after Russian gymnast Aliya Mustafina. Shirai was then also compared performing additional skills on even more WAG apparatuses, such as his delivery of one partial routine on uneven bars,[22] on a debatably higher level. Another clip was posted and compared in December 2018 of Shirai very clearly better completing compatriot Mai Murakami's entire competitive floor routine to music, especially in her hardest skills (some not even pre-scored to work within MAG) such as the Gomez on floor, or quadruple turn with free leg below horizontal, by Elena Gómez of Spain, who completed skill at the 2002 AG WC,[23] it is another turn that the FIG also awarded similar D-score value of E (0.5) for WAG in 2017–2021 quad. With Shirai's knowledge, there has been another compilation video then shared by his fans showing Shirai in training skills, which could potentially become any future arsenal of possible advanced original skills in competition on floor and vault, including a "RO–BH–4½ twist punch ½ or full" on floor, and "½ on–3½ off" on vault too.[24]

See also

• Japan men's national gymnastics team
• 2021 Top Scorers in Men's Artistic Gymnastics

References

External links

• Kenzo Shirai at the International Gymnastics Federation
• Kenzō Shirai at Olympics.com
• Kenzō Shirai at Olympedia
• Shirai (FloorEx) at gymnaflash.com
• Shirai/Kim (Vault) at gymnaflash.com

На других языках

---

- [en] Kenzō Shirai

---

[fr] Kenzō Shirai

Kenzō Shirai (en japonais, 白井 健三 Shirai Kenzō, né le 24 août 1996 à Yokohama) est un gymnaste japonais. Il remporte la médaille d'or au sol aux Championnats du monde de gymnastique artistique 2013 où il réalise une quadruple vrille inédite, deux médailles d'argent (au sol et par équipe) aux Championnats du monde de gymnastique artistique 2014 et deux médailles d'or (au sol et par équipe) aux Championnats du monde de gymnastique artistique 2015.

---

[it] Kenzō Shirai

Kenzō Shirai (白井 健三 Shirai Kenzō?; Yokohama, 24 agosto 1996) è un ginnasta giapponese, vincitore della medaglia di bronzo al volteggio e membro della squadra vincitrice della medaglia d'oro ai Giochi di Rio de Janeiro 2016.

---

[ru] Сираи, Кэндзо

Кэндзо Сираи (яп. 白井 健三 Сираи Кэндзо:, 24 августа 1996 года, Иокогама, Канагава,Япония) — японский гимнаст, олимпийский чемпион 2016 года в командном первенстве. Чемпион мира в вольных упражнениях 2013 и 2015 годов, чемпион мира в командном первенстве 2015 года. Прославился тем, что на своём первом чемпионате мира уверенно выиграл вольные упражнения, первым в мире исполнив на завершающей диагонали прыжок в четыре пируэта[1].

---

---