Gymnastics enthusiasts have long revered Simone Biles and Kohei Uchimura as gymnastics royalty, with Biles dominating the women’s realm and Uchimura reigning supreme for men over the past decade-plus. Yet the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics emerged as a tumultuous final act, where injuries and upsets prevented these champions from showcasing their skills at the pinnacle.

As they potentially approach the eve of their storied gymnastics careers, the parallel trajectories of unparalleled dominance segueing into ill-timed struggles have cast a spotlight on the indelible mark both legends have etched into their sport’s history.

Simone Biles gymnastics parallel to alter-champion

Uchimura Kohei, the greatest male gymnast of all time, had a challenging wind down to his gymnastics career due to injuries. While, Uchimura, 35, and Biles, 26 have accomplished enough to be regarded as the best gymnasts of all time; their shared Tokyo upsets, Biles’s twisties, and Uchimura’s fall from bars in the semifinals kept their skills at a disadvantage at the postponed Tokyo Olympics.

Ian Gunther, a four-time NCAA gymnastics gold medalist, recently posted a voice-over video featuring Simone Biles and Kohei Uchimura’s characteristics on Instagram. “Simone is the (GOAT emoji) of women’s gym Kōkei is the (GOAT emoji) of men’s,” the caption reads.

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“Simone Biles gymnastics is characterized by her power and her ability to do skills that no one else can do,” Ian Gunther continued in his dedicated video. On the other hand, he said: “Kohei is more known for his ability to execute his skills perfectly. He’s so good that he became the first male or female gymnast to win every major competition in an Olympics cycle (4 years).“

Japanese gymnast Kohei Uchimura’s injury-marred career

Kohei Uchimura is the sole gymnast to have won six world all-around titles and two straight Olympic all-around gold medals, proving his dominance on the world stage from 2009 to 2016. Soon after the 2016 Rio Olympics, Uchimura’s progress was hampered by injuries. After he led Japan to win the men’s team gold in 2016, he struggled with injuries to his ankle and shoulder.

Despite this, Uchimura was able to win two medals in the 2018 world championships: a bronze with his team and a silver on the horizontal bar. Due to an injury, he was forced to miss the 2019 competition, but he returned as a high bar specialist and qualified for the Tokyo Games. In his fourth Olympics competing on home soil, he lost out on the final after slipping off the bar in the qualification round.

Upset, Uchimura said, “I’d say it was half accident, half meant to be. Obviously, I can’t go on forever… Knowing it has to end some day, (the fall) may have led to this.” Uchimura made his last competitive appearance two months later, finishing sixth in the high bar final at the World Championships in Kitakyushu, Japan.

Unless Gabby Douglas (28) can earn a berth on the Olympic team, Simone Biles, the first African-American woman to win the US Gymnastics Championship in 2013, might become the oldest woman in US gymnastics history to perform at the Games. She expressed her concern saying, “I’m getting old and I have more to lose,” but she hasn’t yet revealed what her long-term goals are after the Olympics in Paris.