Kenzō Shirai

At 27 years old, Kenzō Shirai has this physical status:

Six eponymous skills, three each on floor exercise and vault, were named after Shirai since he was the first to complete successfully at competitive international majors. He had been the face of Japan's national team during 2013–2018 until injures slowed down his career. Shirai retired on June 16, 2021, after not making the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Barely 17, Shirai was the youngest male to compete at the 2013 AG WC. On FX, he qualified first with a 16.233, 0.633 above next highest scorer, Brazil's Diego Hypólito. Shirai became the youngest ever men's world FX champion then too. 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 a 16.000 score in final, 0.4 victory margin over US silver medallist Jacob Dalton. Commentator Tim Daggett said live on-air that "there is no way Shirai doesn't win this" just before Shirai began his final FX routine where he "twisted his way to first gold medal". On VT, Shirai was again the top-ranked in qualifying, but only managed to place fourth in final.

Three out of Shirai's six eponymous skills were officially verified here in Antwerp, Belgium. He successfully executed the Shirai or Shirai-Kim on VT (Yurchenko, all skills with round off [RO]–back handspring [BH] entries into vaults 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).

With Shirai, Japan won team silver at the 2014 World Championships in Nanning—just 0.1 behind winner and host China. He made the FX and VT event finals again. On FX, despite having a far greater D-score, he struggled with his execution score (E-score). In his third pass, an out-of-bound step resulted in a 0.1 penalty that cost him the gold, just 0.017 behind Russian Denis Ablyazin. On VT, Shirai had top E-scores, but low difficulty on second vault dragged him down to fourth.

At the 2015 World Championships in Glasgow, Shirai was part of Japan national team that won the gold medal for first time since 1978, with his performance in FX was the highest in the whole competition, as well as the only one to achieve above 16 points. In individual events, Shirai qualified for FX and VT finals, winning the former while ranked 7th in the latter. His floor performance also scored above 16.000, as the D-score of 7.6 was at least 0.8 higher than the rest. Such high results were due to his high connection bonuses of various skill combinations, by ending many passes blindly facing forwards that risked his combination lines, as well as he began displaying additional abilities to execute "double somersault" (2 revolutions) skills consistently.

In December, at the Toyota International Tournament, Shirai won and successfully conducted a new skill on floor that would later be named as Shirai 3. Its extreme difficulty gave him the honour of being one of four male gymnasts who owned an original skill with highest D-score of H (0.8) at that time, until being overpassed by Miyachi (I) on high bar in 2017.

Being only 19 years, 11 months and 15 days old, Shirai became Japan's youngest male gymnast in the history to win an Olympic gold medal, as the Japanese claimed the victory in Team's event. His contributions of 16.133 in FX and 15.633 in VT were respectively the highest and 3rd best in the whole competition.

At the FX final, the two-time and reigning world champion on floor was the overwhelming favorite owing to the extremely high-difficulty routine and excellent execution, but on this occasion, Shirai had problems with his landings on three of six passes. In separate interviews after the competition, both Shirai and American Sam Mikulak, who was the top qualifier but finished in last place, expressed disappointment with the crowd, whose booing/jeering had grown increasingly loud during non-Brazilian routines as the competition went on. Max Whitlock of Great Britain was a somewhat unexpected winner as he had avoided this due to an early draw in the final round.

At the VT final, Shirai performed the highest graded single vault of the whole competition at his first attempt, scoring 15.833 points. However, his decision to significantly reduce the difficulty to 5.6 dragged him to 3rd place, tied with Marian Drăgulescu but won the bronze medal by having higher E-score. Shirai's successful attempt created a second new vault skill which was later named as the Shirai 2.

Shirai represented Japan at the Melbourne World Cup in February, winning gold in floor, vault and horizontal bar. He also got a silver in parallel bars and 10th place in rings. Also at the competition, Shirai successfully performed his sixth original vault skill that were later name the Shirai 3, making him the male gymnast with most skills bearing his name, and second in total after Svetlana Khorkina (who got 9).

At the 2017 World Championships, Shirai qualified for individual finals of all-around, floor and vault, which he was on podium in all 3 events. In all-around, he achieved 3rd place with the score of 86.431, only 0.017 behind the silver medalist Lin Chaopan. On floor, he successfully defended his title by with 1.100 margin with the runner-up, Artem Dolgopyat, while on vault, he narrowly won gold with 0.001 over Igor Radivilov and also with favourite Yang Hak Seon's withdrawal due to a hamstring injury.

In March 2018, Shirai competed at the American Cup in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Despite being favourite, he only placed sixth due to several falls and errors in pommel horse and the horizontal bar, as well as underperformed floor routine. However, he recovered by winning the Tokyo World Cup one month later.

In a series of domestic tournaments taking place from April to August, Shirai achieved all-around silver medals at All-Japan Championships, NHK Trophy, and won the All-Japan Student Championships. He also got a gold in floor and a silver in vault at the All-Japan Event Championships.

At the World Championships in Doha, Japan only achieved the bronze in team event, with the top players like Kohei Uchimura and Yusuke Tanaka were on the other side of their career. Shirai was not at his best form, as he reduced the difficulty of his floor and vault routines. As the result, he was unable to defend any of his medals in 2017, however still won a silver in floor and a bronze in vault, as well as 7th place in all-around.

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 this season at the 2019 American Cup, but withdrew to treat injury of left ankle, which was sustained about a week before he began to travel. 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. Gymnast-turned-analyst Tim Daggett said, “(M)an, myth, legend...capable of doing...many things...people thought were...literally impossible before Shirai did them.”

On April 26–28, 2019, Shirai competed at the 2019 All-Japan AA Championships, one of two closely-hosted-only-IAA meets in Chofu, Tokyo metro, Japan, and made the event finals in 22nd place, but finished 30th. Shirai also only managed one top-three score for any apparatus, and second highest for 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 in Chofu, Tokyo metro, Japan, repeating his 2018 participation in the IAA-only 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, 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 competition-debut at the 2013 AG WC, he did not make the Japanese men's national team, and so got excluded 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 a stubborn injury to that nagging left ankle, which resulted in his inability to compete optimally during the 2019 All-Japan Apparatus Championships when his results then and at the 2019 NHK Trophy decided which athletes joined the Japanese national team at the 2019 AG WC. His best chance was to get 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 thus unable to defend the 2018 world medals. As Shirai was not the only high-profile absentee since Kōhei Uchimura was missing due to injuries too, Japanese men competed a fairly inexperienced squad at 2019's AG WC where men's competition was dominated by other nations. Shirai worked hard to return to competition form after an extended period of time to try and recover from various injuries. Hence, he was very rusty on all apparatuses.

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 ankle injuries to truly begin affecting performance level of 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 events at the end.

On December 10–13, 2020, Shirai (a postgraduate at Nittaidai) competed again at the 2020 All-Japan Championships in Takasaki, Japan, but less well as in seasons past, placing only 18th and fourth on individual AA (167.196) and FX (15.166). Local national AG federation repurposed the meet as another Olympic-qualifying event as officials chose the most in-form roster nearest to start of one COVID-affected 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo that was postponed until next summer with team of six men—four on the TAA event with team bronze at 2018's AG WC where Shirai contributed on FX, VT and HB to team's total, plus two more on individual events. Due to public health issues of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were delayed by one full year until July 23–August 8, 2021. Epidemic also put off and/or cancelled many Olympic-qualifying meets. In 2020, Shirai reluctantly began to consider retirement, a result of existing injuries, but returned early 2021 to compete at the 2021 All-Japan Championships, still trying to qualify for the OG. After failure at qualifying, he announced his immediate retirement from AG on June 16, 2021, missing him the 2021 AG WC hosted by home replacement city of Kitakyushu too. Shirai left behind the legacy of 13 major medals and six eponyms.

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