Only two days after thinking his horizontal bar performance was enough for Japan to win the men's team event in artistic gymnastics, Daiki Hashimoto again looked expectantly at the scoreboard for his official result in the individual all-around on Wednesday night.
In the final rotation of the team event, Hashimoto had scored an astounding 15.100 to help Japan take silver, with the Russian Olympic Committee winning gold by just 0.103.
This time in the individual event, Hashimoto was the final competitor in his final apparatus, the horizontal bar again. He needed to score over 14.533 to win gold.
When he saw his score of 14.933, Hashimoto raised his fists in the air and let out a scream of elation.
The 19-year-old became Japan's youngest gymnast to win a gold medal in the men's individual all-around.
He follows in the footsteps of Kohei Uchimura, who won back-to-back titles at London 2012 and Rio 2016, and runs up Japan's total number of Olympic medals in gymnastics to 100.
"When I'm really happy in my life, I can't express how it feels," Hashimoto said.
His total score was 88.465, while silver medalist Xiao Ruoteng of China finished with 88.065 and bronze medalist Nikita Nagornyy of the ROC ended up with 88.031.
What pushed Hashimoto above the field was his difficult maneuver on the horizontal bar, best described as a double backward somersault with a double twist, to finish his routine.
At 1.66 meters tall, Hashimoto is big for a gymnast, with long arms and legs. His solid physique and good fundamentals helped his performance as he only had a deduction of 0.1 on one apparatus, the vault.
Uchimura had also made his Olympic debut at 19, winning the silver in the individual all-around at the 2008 Beijing Games. His successor in the sport is already looking at the gymnastics world from a higher perch.
"I want to work as hard as ever," Hashimoto said, "and do my best every day."
-- Hungry attitude
Hashimoto was born in Chiba Prefecture and started going to a local gymnastics club at 6, influenced by his two older brothers. The club practiced in the gymnasium of an abandoned school, which was not fully equipped and did not allow him to try difficult or dangerous techniques. He was thoroughly trained in basic techniques such as handstands and doing circles on the pommel horse. This worked out well for him.
When he moved on to the prestigious Funabashi Municipal High School in Chiba Prefecture, he was able to learn advanced techniques because he had already mastered the basics.
"He was like dry sand absorbing water," his coach at the school said.
Furthermore, his longing to learn difficult techniques fostered a hungry attitude.
"He hates losing to the extreme," the school's head coach said. "If there was a technique he couldn't do, he wouldn't leave until he succeeded."
The head coach added with a laugh: "I had to wait for a long time."
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