Japanese gymnastics hero Kohei Uchimura believes Olympic judges are influenced by the result of the previous year's World Championships. Japan — silver medallists behind China at the last two Games — triumphed in the men's team event in Rio on Monday, with Uchimura delivering a strong floor routine to wrap up the win.
The team also triumphed at last year's World Championships in Glasgow and Uchimura feels that success played a part in their Olympic gold.
"If you win gold at the World Championships [in the year before the Olympic Games], the judges will get a good impression of you. It is psychological," he said.
"In order to get closer to gold, it was important to give a good impression to the judges in Glasgow. By giving them a good impression, I think maybe we were able to earn a little more points. It is important to create a flow."
Uchimura was part of the teams that lost out to China in 2008 and 2012, but Uchimura insists he was not distracted by the eventual bronze medallists.
"I was not focused on China," he added. "Everybody knows that China always fight for gold. We believed they would do that here as well.
"I was not really watching them. Maybe it was just me. We came to Brazil to do what we are meant to do. Because we were able to do so, we won the gold. The next Olympics will be in Tokyo and I believe we can win again."
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