Kenzo Shirai

is a Japanese retired artistic gymnast. He was a member of the gold medal winning teams at the 2016 Olympic Games and the 2015 World Championships. Individually he was the 2016 Olympic bronze medalist on vault, a three-time World Champion on floor exercise (2013, 2015, 2017), and the 2017 World Champion on vault.

Early life Shirai was born in Yokohama, Kanagawa. Like his older brothers, he started gymnastics with parents Masaki and Norimi, first coaches and home club owners. Shirai said, "For as long as I can remember, I was a gym rat." Instead of paying day care, parents took him to their work. Practicing a six-hour session 5–7 days per week, Shirai attended regular school, which was atypical for an elite athlete. After he graduated Kishine High School in March 2015, he was accepted to attend/represent new home club of Nittaidai on the southern Tokyo border where other Japanese gymnasts also trained, including mentor Kōhei Uchimura.

Career 2013 Shirai, barely over 17 years of age, was the youngest male artistic gymnast participating at the 2013 World Championships in Antwerp. On floor exercise, he qualified in first with a score of 16.233, 0.633 points over Brazil's Diego Hypólito. During the event final, he scored 16.000 to win gold over the USA's Jake Dalton. In doing so, he became youngest ever World Champion on floor exercise in men's artistic gymnastics. On vault, Shirai qualified to the event final in first but ended up placing fourth.

At this competition, Shirai successfully competed three new skills, which were named after him in the Code of Points. On vault, he completed a triple-twisting Yurchenko while on floor exercise he completed a backward quadruple twisting layout and forward triple twisting layout.

2014 At the 2014 World Championships, Shirai helped Japan win silver as a team, only 0.1 point behind China. Individually he qualified for the floor exercise and vault finals. During the floor exercise final, Shirai stepped out of bounds, incurring a 0.1 penalty which ended up costing him the gold as he lost to Russian Denis Ablyazin by 0.017 points. On vault, Shirai finished fourth for the second year in a row.

2015 At the 2015 World Championships in Glasgow, Shirai helped Japan win team gold for first time since 1978. Shirai posted the top score on floor exercise of the whole meet, and it was also the only value above 16.000 points. In the individual event finals, Shirai qualified for both floor exercise and vault, winning gold on the former and ranking seventh on latter.

At the Toyota Cup in December, Shirai verified his fourth eponymous skill and third on floor exercise: a triple-twisting double layout.

2016 Shirai competed at the 2016 Olympic Games. At 19 years, 11 months and 15 days old, Shirai became Japan's youngest and only teen male gymnast in history to ever win Olympic gold after the Japanese men's squad won the team gold medal. In the vault final, Shirai successfully originated a new skill: a three and a half twisting yurchenko vault (an additional half twist from his original eponymous vault). He ended up winning Olympic bronze behind Ri Se-gwang and Denis Ablyazin. In the floor exercise final, Shirai finished fourth.

2017 In February, Shirai competed at the Melbourne World Cup, Shirai won gold on floor exercise, vault, and horizontal bar and won silver on parallel bars. Additionally, he verified his sixth eponymous skill and third on vault, a "full (1/1) on–double full off".

At the 2017 World Championships in Montreal, Shirai made the individual all-around, floor exercise, and vault finals, medalling in each. In the all-around, he won bronze with an 86.431, just 0.017 behind silver medal-winning Lin Chaopan. On floor exercise, Shirai defended his gold, earning a score 1.1 points ahead of second place finisher Artem Dolgopyat. On vault, Shirai won the title ahead of runner-up Igor Radivilov.

2018 In March 2018, Shirai competed at the 2018 American Cup. He ended up placing sixth due to a few errors and falls on horizontal bar and pommel horse. Shirai recovered by winning the Tokyo World Cup the following month.

In a series of domestic competitions held locally between April and August, Shirai won all-around silver medals at the All-Japan Championships and NHK Trophy, and won the All-Japan Student Championships. Shirai was also able to win an individual gold medal on floor exericse with silver medal on vault at the All-Japan Event Championships.

At the 2018 World Championships in Doha, Japan won team bronze. Shirai was unable to defend any of his 2017 titles; however he still won silver on floor exercise and bronze on vault.

2019

In early 2019, Shirai competed at the 2019 Tokyo World Cup. Like 2018, he was supposed to start his season off at the 2019 American Cup, but he withdrew in order to treat a left ankle injury, which was sustained about a week before he began traveling. Due to the injury, Shirai simplified certain skills in his routines for the competition in Tokyo. Shirai ultimately failed to defend his gold medal from 2018, but he did manage to win bronze with the combined total of 82.964, despite still recovering from injury.

On April 26–28, 2019, Shirai competed at the 2019 All-Japan Championships, where he placed 30th. Shirai also only managed one top-three score for any apparatus, and second highest for floor exercise (14.533) behind Kazuki Minami (14.633).

On May 18–19, 2019, Shirai competed at the 2019 NHK Trophy. Due to lingering injury issues with the left ankle, he was unable to perform as well at the competition when compared to most others that would also include his performance there last year. Shirai placed 23rd with a 243.794 combined score. He was unable to achieve a top three score on any of the apparatuses, not even on his signatures of floor exercise or vault.

On June 21–23, 2019, Shirai competed at the 2019 All-Japan Apparatus Championships, hoping he would do well enough to secure a spot on the Japanese men's national team and compete as part of the next world championships held in the autumn of 2019. He qualified for three individual event finals, which were floor exercise, vault, and horizontal bar, ranking second, fourth, and sixth respectively. In the finals, he proceeded to finish in third (14.900), fifth (14.433), and eighth (11.200) place respectively for each of these apparatuses.

In 2019, for the first time since Shirai's debut competition in 2013, he did not make the Japanese men's national team, and was excluded to compete at the 2019 World Championships.

On December 14–15, 2019, Shirai again competed at the local 2019 Toyota International Cup but he withdrew from all events at the end, citing ongoing ankle injuries.

2020–2021 On December 10–13, 2020, then postgraduate at Nittaidai, Shirai competed again at the 2020 All-Japan Championships, placing 18th in the all-around (167.196), and fourth on floor exercise (15.166).

Due to public health issues of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were delayed by one year until July 23–August 8, 2021. In 2020, Shirai reluctantly began to consider retirement because of persistent injuries, but returned in early 2021 to compete at the 2021 All-Japan Championships, still trying to make it to the local Olympic Games. After not qualifying, he announced his immediate retirement from AG on June 16, 2021, also missing him the 2021 World Championships in the Japanese city of Kitakyushu.

Competitive history

+Competitive history of Kenzō ShiraiYearEvent 2012 Asian Championships 6 2013 World Championships 4 2014World Championships 4 2015 Cottbus World Challenge Cup 6 Asian Championships World Championships 7 2016 Baku World Challenge Cup 4 Olympic Games 4 2017 Melbourne World Cup World Championships 2018 American Cup 6 Tokyo World Cup World Championships 7 2019 Tokyo World Cup 2020 All-Japan Senior Championships 24 All-Japan Championships 18 4 7 2021 NHK Trophy All-Japan Event Championships 7

Eponymous skills Shirai is officially credited with 6 original skill names. Current 2022–2024 quad's D-scores below held up since competing last in the FIG's earlier 2017–2021 CoP for MAG:

Miscellaneous In October 2017, as the 2017 World Championships just finished up in Montreal, a social media video showed Shirai in highly competent delivery of the Mustafina on floor, or triple Y-turn, which has an E (0.5) D-score in the 2017–2021 CoP for WAG—officially named after Russian gymnast Aliya Mustafina. Shirai was then also observed completing additional skills on even more WAG apparatuses, such as the execution of a partial routine on uneven bars, at least to comparable levels. In December 2018, another clip was posted and compared of Shirai reproducing compatriot Mai Murakami's entire competition floor routine to music with her hardest skills—many not assessed for scoring of MAG—such as the Gomez on floor, or quadruple turn with free leg below horizontal (originated by Spain's Elena Gómez at the 2002 World Championships in Debrecen), which was another skill given FIG's top D-score of E (0.5) for all WAG dance elements in 2017–2021 quad. With Shirai's knowledge, there had been another compilation video then shared by the fans showing Shirai training some skills/combos that had potential to be part of future arsenal to perform possible advanced original floor and vault skills—could include "RO–BH–4½ twist punch ½ or full" on floor, and "½ on–3½ off" on vault too.