The China Mail - Oka dethrones Hashimoto in shock men's Olympic all-around triumph

Oka, 20, claimed gold ahead of Chinese duo Zhang Boheng in second, with Xiao Ruoteng claiming bronze as Hashimoto finished sixth.

In a gripping battle for gymnastics' most coveted title, less than a point split the top three going into the last of the six rotations -- the horizontal bar.

With the Bercy Arena crowd holding their breath the last to go Zhang, who was set for bronze, produced a huge performance.

That left all eyes trained on the giant screen for his score to see if he had pulled gold out of the bag.

When it finally flashed up, Oka's face lit up as his internal calculator worked out he had held on by just 0.233 points with an overall points tally of 86.832.

Xiao, silver medallist behind Hashimoto at the Tokyo Games, was a further 0.235 points back.

Oka's win gave Japan an unprecedented fourth consecutive men's all-around title after Hashimoto and Japanese icon Kohei Uchimura, the winner at London 2012 and four years later in Rio.

This was Olympic debutant Oka's second gold in the space of 48 hours after he helped Japan to the team title at the Paris Games on Monday.

Zhang had looked razor sharp in qualifying, topping the list of 24 going through to the final ahead of Oka and Hashimoto.

The Tokyo champion started as though he meant business, landing his tumbles on the opening floor exercise with such sure-footedness the judges could have been forgiven for wondering if he had glue on the soles of his feet.

Over to Zhang, who drew gasps of consternation from the Chinese contingent in the Bercy Arena with a fall at the start of his routine and a hop back on his last jump.

That left him well down the field with Hashimoto placed third, on the coattails of Britain's Jake Jarman (who finished seventh) and Oleg Verniaiev of Ukraine.

- Pommel horse woe for Hashimoto -

The pommel horse was next for the six leading qualifiers -- Hashimoto had fallen off the apparatus in Monday's team competition -- and he suffered the same fate again 48 hours later.

He jumped straight back into the saddle to earn a decent 12.966 with a flurry of Russian circles and flairs.

But he moved onto the third rotation way down in 16th behind the new leader, Oka.

At the midway point of the evening Verniaiev, parallel bars champion and all-around silver medallist in Rio 2016, was just over one and a half points behind Oka, with Xiao, another Ukrainian, Illia Kovtun, and Zhang completing the provisional top five.

But the veteran 30-year-old Verniaiev grabbed the lead from Kovtun after his favoured parallel bars to leave the war-torn country with dreams of a memorable 1-2 on the podium.

A flawed performance on the horizontal bar by Verniaiev quickly ruined that prospect.

Zhang was causing a stir on the adjacent parallel bars to earn a huge 15.300, but it was Oka who led the pack from Xiao with Zhang in third into the closing sixth rotation on the horizontal bar.

And that's how the podium panned out, but not before a nerve-wracking finale.

D.Pan--ThChM