Kohei Uchimura picks up speed as he makes one final rotation around the horizontal bar and lets go, sending his body flying upward. The three-time Olympic gold medalist clinches his arms in a tight X across his chest as he corkscrews through the air and lands with a slight hop backward for balance.
The roar of the crowd, which had been silently watching and hanging on every move and rotation around the bar, fills the arena as Uchimura gives the slightest of nods and then raises a fist.
It’s a scene that could’ve come straight out of the Tokyo Olympics — if the games hadn’t been postponed in March because of COVID-19 — but instead played out on a normal Sunday afternoon during a friendly gymnastics competition organizers hope is the precursor to the successful staging — during a pandemic — of the world's biggest sporting event. That scene could still play out next summer at the rescheduled games, but Tokyo 2020 organizers have their work cut out for them.