Talk:Kenzō Shirai

New/Updated Photo
Could someone replace the current profile photo with a new, updated one (in focus, representative of subject, etc.). Thank you. Navarrocortez (talk) 22:31, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Removed/Shortened Contents
There are many parts of the article that contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience, & some even displayed the opinions of the editors. Therefore I have removed or shortened some of them. Anyone who cares about subject & find such information interesting can still read it here. It should be noticed there are several mistakes, i.e. Shirai competed for Nippon Sport Science University since early 2015, not in December. NguyenDuyAnh1995 (talk) 23:39, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Career \ 2015
In October 2015, Shirai participated at the 2015 AG WC in Glasgow, Scotland. In the team all-around (AA) finals, scores contributed on both the signature apparatuses, FX and VT, helped Japan take 2015’s team gold with a combined total of 270.818, outscoring the silver-winning team from Britain by nearly ½ point. Shirai's FX score to the team finals of 16.325 was highest among all athletes (only score exceeding 16 points with the next highest at over ½-a-point less). Shirai’s VT score of 15.533 was the team finals' second highest on that apparatus too—behind the 15.700 posted by Russian Denis Ablyazin, who also narrowly defeated Shirai for his gold medal last year in the individual FX event finals at the 2014 WC. Again, Shirai made the same two individual event finals. On FX, he did so in first place with a 16.100—0.734 above next high scorer, China‘s Deng Shudi (15.366). On October 31, 2015, Shirai won the second WC FX title. In the individual FX event finals, he executed another hard routine to a 16.233, ahead of Briton Max Whitlock and Spain’s Rayderley Zapata. Shirai's 0.667 victory margin over Whitlock was widest among the male finalists here, bettering Shirai's 2013 WC results.

Shirai's latest routine on FX with an even greater D-score start value of 7.6 was once again highest among all the individual FX finalists. The resulting huge 17.6 base score was due to his high connection bonuses of various skill combinations, and also by ending many passes blindly facing forwards that risked his combination lines. His routines till then only consisted of "single somersault" (one revolution) skills, but it was at this event that he began displaying additional abilities to execute "double somersault" (2 revolutions) skills consistently. E.g. the Ri Jong Song on FX (triple-twisting double back [tucked] somersault, or AKA a "triple-double"—first completed successfully by North Korean Ri Jong Song at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens) with high G (0.7) D-score, the second highest difficulty that got awarded here to skills on all events except for VT in AG to be the FX routine's second pass. Shirai thus needed to amend his existing second pass of "front full twist punch Shirai 2" to come third, and also eliminate the routine's initial third pass of "RO–whip back–triple twist" completely. The new order of updated passes—1) RO–BH–3½ twist punch double twist, 2) RO–BH–Ri Jong Song, 3) forward layout full punch Shirai 2, 4) RO–BH–2½ twist punch 2½ twist, 5) RO–side somersault full, and 6) RO–BH–Shirai.

In the individual vault event finals, Shirai placed seventh with the average combined total of 14.516. He had posted competitive E-scores among the finalists, but both Shirai's vaults had the lower D-scores of 5.6 and 5.2 for 2015, lacking then the higher numbers necessary to achieve the bigger average combined score needed and realistically challenge the world's top vaulters for a spot on the podium when every other vault completed in the individual final had a score of 6.0 in difficulty or above. One detail to note here of Shirai's worst vault final result at the WC since his 2013 debut—he started both his two planned vaults normally, but due to his poor landing position of the "Yurchenko" first vault, Shirai or Shirai-Kim, with 6.0 D-score (3 twists), judges downgraded it to the Shewfelt or Amanar with 5.6 D-score (2½ twists) for incomplete twisting, resulting in Shirai's team decision to simplify the “Tsukahara” next or second vault from the Driggs with 5.6 D-score (2½ twists) to Akopian with 5.2 D-score (2 twists—originated by Artur Akopian of the former Soviet Union at the WC earlier in the 1980s) since chances of Shirai medalling at that moment in the competition had then suddenly become mathematically extremely unlikely in an instant, effectively due to the initial difficulty loss of 0.4 on his higher-scoring vault. These scores, 5.6 and 5.2, also happen to correspond perfectly then to the lower D-scores of their respective Shirai or Shirai-Kim, and Driggs in the CoP next quad. North Korea's Ri Se Gwang (15.450) defended his gold, Marian Drăgulescu of Romania (15.400) won silver, and American Donnell Whittenburg (15.350) took bronze.

Shirai started competing with childhood home club, Tsurumi Junior Gymnastics Club. On December 12–13, 2015, he was long a regular on the AG competition circuit representing his university and new home club of NSSU when Shirai was thus sent to the FIG's 2015 Toyota International Cup (or Gymnastics Competition) in Toyota City, Japan. Even though a comparatively to smaller international competition, they did have a good pool of gymnasts on the roster with some importance because he had successfully completed his third original skill, one of the currently two most difficult skills on floor for men. Via petition, the skill has since taken Shirai's name, and been officially named the Shirai 3 on floor. Practically, it is the straight Ri Jong Song on floor (or triple-twisting double layout), an H (0.8) second "double somersault" (two revolutions) skill, which would later be incorporated into a new floor routine in the next 2017–2021 quad. His routine's passes in this quad would stay unchanged. This was one of the last competing opportunities in 2015’s season as athletes used it to help time their peak performances when the Olympics were fast-approaching. On that individual-apparatus-only event, Shirai had taken two golds in the individual floor and vault apparatus finals, posting scores of 15.700 and 15.225 respectively.

Due to its extreme difficulty of the Shirai 3 on floor, Shirai also achieved the very rare honour then of sharing with Andreas Bretschneider of Germany, Valeri Liukin of the former Soviet Union, and Donnell Whittenburg of the United States to own one, until just a few years ago, of only 4 longstanding and most-difficult-highest-scoring competition-verified original skills for all of men to secure the once official top-scoring assignment of H (0.8) in D-score from the FIG. At present, Bretschneider, Liukin and Whittenburg successfully originated the Bretschneider on the horizontal or high bar (HB) (or Kovác—release skill with full-twisting tucked integrated into each of its skills, verified by Hungary's Péter Kovács at the 1979 European Championships) double full, Liukin on floor (or triple [tucked] back), and Whittenburg on rings (or triple piked back dismount) respectively. The FIG had once highly expected Bretschneider to progress his very own skill into the layout position—already named it the Bretschneider 2 on high bar, suggesting it may obtain MAG's new top D-score of I (0.9) to mirror WAG's only existing top-level floor skill then, but he could not do so. The WAG's lone top I-level (0.9) skill then was the Moors on floor, or double-twisting double back layout, by Victoria Moors of Canada, who verified it at the 2013 WC.

'There were 9,063 characters in the section. I have shortened to 1,746.' NguyenDuyAnh1995 (talk) 23:48, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro
On August 6, 2016, at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Japan's men qualified first on team AA (TAA) as 2015's WC form did stay peaking. They took team gold two days later in the event finals at Rio Olympic Arena with a 274.094 total. Only 19 years, 11 months and 15 days old, Shirai contributed top FX (16.133) and VT (15.633) scores to team total, becoming Japan’s youngest male gymnast ever to win Olympic gold. Performing well, his score strengths began with vault’s best TTY stuck landing, just to top it with "one of his best" FX routines (0.533 above next score)—helped the team mentally to perform better with each routine. Russia led after two events. Japan ranked sixth with pommel-horse fall to end first rotation, fifth after second, second in topping third (VT), and first from fifth onwards. Shirai posted team final’s top VT (15.633) with best E-score (9.633) despite lower D-score (6.0) than Russia's Denis Ablyazin (6.4) and Japan's Kōhei Uchimura (6.2). Japanese men got top-rankings on FX, VT and HB, posting FX's top 3 with VT's first and third scores as Japan (274.094) beat Russia (271.453) and China (271.122). Male members of Japan’s 2016 Olympic team were Ryōhei Katō, Shirai (only one new not at last Olympics), Yūsuke Tanaka, Uchimura (captain) and Koji Yamamuro.

Shirai appeared in good form as he qualified for the individual floor and vault finals. As twice/reigning floor world champion then owning a 7.6-D-score routine, he was favourite to win floor final but placed disappointing fourth (15.366) with landing troubles in 3 of 6 passes. His team final floor score would beat the winner by ½ a point. Preparing to include latest eponymous floor skill, the Shirai 3, into the quad’s routines, he could have achieved another next-level-7.7 D-score in the 2013–2016 CoP. Britain’s Max Whitlock (15.633), the gymnast that Shirai had easily beaten only 9½ months ago on the individual floor event at 2015's WC by some significant margin, won gold, and Diego Hypólito (15.533) and Arthur Mariano (15.433), both of host Brazil, were second and third. Increasingly noisy/hostile home crowd boos and jeers during non-Brazilian routines towards the end was a disgrace—some shaken finalists got denied chance to excel at Olympics, but Shirai with America's Sam Mikulak, top qualifier to finish last, had it the worst. Both said blatantly partial crowd input left them feeling "alone" and "rattled". Lucky to perform early, Whitlock was spared. Shirai was capable, in-form and sufficiently experienced (twice floor world champion)—en route to win individual floor gold, but unruly crowd compromised his chance.

In the next day's individual vault event finals, Shirai got an average combined total of 15.449 (15.833 and 15.066 for his two vaults—the former being their top-scoring vault of that final), and tied the legendary Marian Drăgulescu of Romania with the third highest numeric total of their event final. The tie-breaker had worked in Shirai's favour this time, to secure him bronze, edging out Drăgulescu, who also competed well to score the same combined average, but missed making that critical deciding factor for breaking ties then, which was the single top numeric combined total (15.833 vs 15.633) on any of the final's already performed vaults, into finishing in fourth. With defending champion, Yang Hak Seon of South Korea, out injured, Ri Se Gwang of North Korea (15.691), whose AG federation was banned from competitions in much of 2012 amid continual age falsification violations by their female athletes, won gold while Ablyazin (15.516) successfully defended his silver. In vault qualifying, Shirai, Ukraine's Igor Radivilov, Drăgulescu and Russia's Nikita Nagornyy in that order placed third through sixth, but all scored third highest (15.283), albeit Radivilov and Drăgulescu did incur a 0.1 penalty each for one-foot-out landings on their second vaults. Shirai also used own single top score (15.466) again then to rank ahead.

In Rio, Shirai successfully executed a second new vault too, now officially named the Shirai 2, or Yurchenko 3½ twist, which received the second highest value of 6.4 difficulty in the FIG's 2013–2016 CoP at the time with top D-score of 7.0 awarded ahead to the Radivilov, or front handspring triple (tucked) somersault, originated by the 2012 Olympic vault bronze medallist and vault specialist, Igor Radivilov. Naming credit was given despite him sitting his skill down during individual vault final, just have it be totally banned from competition and removed from next quad's CoP due to a high risk of injury when competing/training that skill. So, Shirai now shares the honour of owning at least one of only four officially named top-6.0-D-score original skills with the 2012 and 2016 Olympic vault champions—Yang has one and Ri two. The five hardest vaults then had identical top 6.0 D-score in next 2017–2021 CoP—the Shirai 2, Ri Se Gwang, Ri Se Gwang 2, Yang Hak Seon and Tsukahara 3½. One pre-assessed vault at this time did achieve an even higher 6.4 D-score awaiting verification, which was the full-twisting double Tsukahara or Ri Se Gwang piked. Only one out of five vaults mentioned above (the former Shirai 2) had ever been successfully completed by its originator in competition then—not again since the OG.

'There were 7,295 characters in the section. I have shortened to 2,093.' NguyenDuyAnh1995 (talk) 23:48, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Career \ 2017
On February 22–25, 2017, Shirai competed abroad at the individual-apparatus-only-meet 2017 Melbourne World Cup (WCup) in Melbourne, Australia, with expanded programme, qualifying for more individual apparatus finals on the horizontal bar, still rings (SR) and parallel bars (PB). In rings qualifying, he finished tenth or last with low execution decreasing enough the combined score to not qualify for that event final. In parallel bars qualifying, Shirai placed third, and qualified for the event finals. Despite a fall in his routine during the horizontal bar qualifying, he finished in fourth place due to mistakes made by rival athletes, and ended up in the event finals too. On the individual parallel bars event, Shirai won silver in that final by posting the second highest E-score (8.433) for a combined score of 14.433. A Chinese gymnast, Zou Jingyuan (15.166), secured the gold while Ferhat Arican of Turkey (13.566) took home the bronze. In the individual horizontal bar event finals, Shirai managed to capture the gold medal with a 13.933 combined total—thanks to his other skill with second highest E-score (8.333), plus even more errors made by other competitors. During final, Mitchell Morgans of Australia (13.400) with another one of Shirai's teammates, Yusuke Saito (13.333), claimed the silver and bronze medals respectively.

Still riding on some of the momentum from all that preparation for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Shirai was in good competition form. In the individual floor and vault qualifications, he placed first and qualified for those two event finals of his seasoned routines/skills. In the individual floor event finals, Shirai easily won the gold with his extreme score of 14.700 largely because of the routine's highest score number of 7.2 in D-score—the second highest only 6.5 among all the finalists. This is also the first competition where Shirai fully integrated the Shirai 3 on floor with D-score of H (0.8) he originated back in 2015 into his competitive floor routines. His passes—1) RO–BH–Shirai 3, 2) RO–BH–Ri Jong Song, 3) RO–BH–2½ punch 2½, 4) front full punch Shirai 2, 5) RO–BH–3½ punch full, and 6) RO–BH–Shirai. Mu Jile of China (14.466) secured the silver medal while Arican (14.033) won his second bronze down under. Lastly, in the individual vault event finals, Shirai won his second gold medal of the competition with the average combined score of 14.916 because of the two highest execution numbers of 9.500 and 9.533 he posted in this apparatus final. Christopher Remkes of Australia (14.883) took home the silver while another of Shirai's countryman, Wataru Tanigawa (14.566), captured the bronze.

Just like in Toyota City, this earlier/lower-profile FIG World Cup competition also held some significance because in Melbourne, Shirai had successfully completed yet one more original element—his sixth in total—to then be officially named the Shirai 3 on vault automatically. Thus, he currently has more skills bearing his name than any other male gymnast in history, and is second only to Russia‘s Svetlana Khorkina, who holds the all-time record to have nine original skills inherit her name across their four events for WAG. The Shirai 3 on vault, or AKA "full on–double full off" in practice, was first given D-score of 5.8 in the 2013–2016 CoP. Technically, the skill has a RO–full-twisting BH, or Scherbo (entry skill up on vault—originated by Vitaly Scherbo of the former Soviet Union, then Unified Team, and finally Belarus early in the 1990s), approach onto vaulting platform “on” into (straight back) double twist “off” it thereafter. Rarer term but it can also be known as a “double-twisting Scherbo”. To add the Shirai 3 on FX onto an existing floor routine, Shirai began initially by switching it in to his starting position as a first pass with the Ri Jong Song staying as second pass to be performed right after. To reflect the higher difficulty with all the updates and upgrades, the rest of the floor routine was adjusted accordingly as well.

Yet to be realised, the next vault in that progression—RO–full-twisting BH onto vault into 2½ twist off, or AKA "full on–2½ off" in practice—was assessed ahead with a 5.8 D-score that many opined as a bit too low since the Li Xiao Peng on vault, or AKA "½ on–2½ off" in practice (originated by China's great gymnast Li Xiao Peng in the 2000s), has also long carried a 5.8 D-score. "Full on–2½ off" has more twists and is by nature more complex/harder to execute. Hence, difficulty should be higher. Like any frequently reassessed skill across all vaults, D-score of the Shirai with Shirai 2 and 3 was lowered to respective 5.6 with 6.0 and 5.4 in 2017–2021 quad too.

In October 2017, Shirai showed he retained more of the Olympic form when he competed at the 2017 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Montreal, Canada. No team events were held, as it is customary since 2005 at the WC in the year right after the Olympics. Shirai would eventually win three medals on a full competition programme to include owning a final routine for last holdout event on pommel horse (PH). He then became eligible for the individual AA (IAA) competition in Montreal, taking first ever world IAA medal (bronze) behind Xiao Ruoteng (86.933) and Lin Chaopan (86.488), both of China. Shirai's combined total of 86.431 has 15.733 on floor, 13.433 on pommel horse, 13.666 on still rings, 15.000 on vault, 14.633 on parallel bars, and 13.966 on high bar. With the top numbers on floor and vault among AA finalists, Shirai had also easily defended the individual world floor title from two years ago when the WC were last held with a final score of 15.633, out-tumbling the silver medallist, Artem Dolgopyat of Israel—just managing a score of 14.533—by over a point. Shirai's final unassailable victory margin of 1.1 became their widest one yet at the WC, outdistancing himself from his rivals even more than the 2015 performance did. His passes stayed consistent after originating the Shirai 3 on floor.

Shirai also qualified second for the vault's individual event finals with an average combined total of 14.949 but subsequently won his first world vault title by putting up the highest average combined scores of 14.900, 15.200 and 14.600 for his first and second numbers respectively, in a very exciting/close last round of competition. After the Olympics, Shirai returned to compete both of his usual vaults—the Shirai or Shirai-Kim, and Driggs—where he posted the top E-score of 9.600, and 9.400. His vaults' D-scores had since been lowered from 6.0 and 5.6 (2013–2015) in the last 2013–2016 quad to 5.6 and 5.2 (2017–2018) in the FIG's next 2017–2021 CoP. Shirai did manage to win with the absolute slimmest of victory margin by just 0.001 after the 2012 Olympic bronze medallist on vault, event specialist Igor Radivilov of Ukraine, came up short and finished with the closest possible second highest average combined score of 14.899. Shirai did also get a little help when the top qualifier and 2012 Olympic champion on vault, South Korea's Yang Hak Seon, withdrew with a hamstring injury after outscoring Shirai by a significant margin of 0.334 with the average combined score of 15.283 in qualifying, which was three times more than the margin of any two other qualifiers. These score differences were only about 0.1.

It is also worth noting that Shirai has executed two identical vaults as he has done since this event debut at the 2013 WC on every individual vault event, even though he has successfully completed more difficult and higher-scoring vaults in competition—specifically the Shirai 2 and Shirai 3 with the former heavily contributing to his bronze medal win at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and latter slightly less his gold in the individual vault event final at the 2017 Melbourne World Cup. Also, Hidetaka Miyachi of Japan took advantage of injuries on German Andreas Bretschneider, who was beaten to the punch here in 2017, originating the first double-twisting layout Kovac, or now officially named the Miyachi on high bar—only skill then given the new top level I (0.9) D-score value, and created in advance specially for it by the FIG—successfully first on home soil at the All-Japan Apparatus Championships in Takasaki, Japan, before he petitioned governing body to officially verify skill completion and name adoption. I (0.9), the new top D-score then, was created to assist an existing MAG scoring system more accurately reflect the very extreme difficulty of the Miyachi on high bar, which got verified here at the 2017 WC then. As a result, they had updated MAG’s scoring system levels again mirror WAG's too.

'There were 11,307 characters in the section. I have shortened to 1,123.' NguyenDuyAnh1995 (talk) 23:48, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Career \ 2018
On March 3, 2018, Shirai started this competition season for 2018 when he accepted the invitation to participate in the American Cup FIG Individual All-Around World Cup 2018, or 2018 American Cup in Hoffman Estates (suburb of Chicago), United States. In this only-IAA competition, Shirai had ranked sixth with a combining score total of 81.498, despite posting top floor and vault on his signature events with respective scores of 15.066 and 14.966, and second highest, tying Yul Moldauer of the United States, on parallel bars with 14.500 behind leader Petro Pakhniuk of Ukraine with 14.933. Each score of Shirai, particularly on pommel horse, was significantly weaker when compared to all other finalists. Hovering sufficiently lower, Shirai's numbers on each of the apparatuses were a 11.100 on pommel horse (lowest on that apparatus with top number posted nearly three full points higher), 13.700 on still rings, and 12.166 on the horizontal bar. As defending, and eventual, champion of the competition, Moldauer scored an 85.964, outscoring Shirai by a fair margin of almost 4½ points because Moldauer was able to achieve one of the top three scores on every apparatus—the highest scorer on still rings, third highest on vault, tie for the second highest on parallel bars, and second highest on the remaining apparatuses.

On April 14, 2018, Shirai competed his spring's last FIG-sanctioned World Cup competition with home advantage at the FIG Individual All-Around World Cup 2018, or 2018 Tokyo World Cup in Tokyo, Japan. Within that group of competing athletes at different experience levels from several world continents across many countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas, Shirai won the first ever IAA title with gold medal at the IAA competition on an officially FIG-owned event, scoring a combined 86.064. Score on every apparatus—15.200 on floor exercise, 13.533 on pommel horse, 13.766 on still rings, 14.966 on vault, 14.466 on parallel bars, and 14.133 on high bar. Among these scores, Shirai also put up one of the top three numbers on all of his apparatuses with the highest values on floor exercise, pommel horse and vault, and second highest on parallel bars and the horizontal bar too behind the two scores of 14.533 posted by Russia's Artur Dalaloyan on the former and 14.500 by American Sam Mikulak on the latter apparatuses, as well as third highest on rings behind the values of 14.366 and 14.300 scored by Dalaloyan and Wataru Tanigawa of Japan. Great efforts towards the end by first-time winners, Tanigawa and Mikulak, who took home silver and bronze respectively with combined scores of 84.399 and 84.098.

On May 19–20, 2018, Shirai competed at home in his lower-profile, non-FIG, only-IAA but regular-circuit event too—primarily for all Japanese coaches to help assess the level of fitness and preparation of each local gymnast hoping to be included onto the national team for namely the WC—at the 2018 NHK Trophy in Tokyo, Japan. Although it is not an event organised by the FIG, Japan still requires participation with favourable results at the competition as a prerequisite in order to be considered for the Japanese team at the next WC. If an athlete had to miss the event but still want represent Japan then, he or she must secure a waiver, which is rarely granted. Shirai won the silver medal here with a combined score of 257.895 including floor's top score of 15.433 as well as third highest of 14.833 on vault, just behind Takumi Sato competing only on floor, rings and vault, and vault specialist Hidenobu Yonekura competing only on his one specialty apparatus. For Shirai's other events, those scores were 13.600 on pommel horse, 13.366 on rings, 14.433 on parallel bars, and 14.066 on high bar respectively. Gold medal went to the legend Kōhei Uchimura, who had come from behind to win with the combined total of 258.629, which also included the top score (14.966) on high bar, and second highest (14.633) on floor.

On October 25–November 3, 2018, Shirai competed at the 2018 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Doha, Qatar—the first ever WC held in the Middle East. As Shirai lost competition form, resulting in less success that year than the last, he still took one silver and two bronzes even when he simplified to easier FX routines. Shirai contributed to Japan’s team bronze on FX, VT and HB with 14.933, 14.966 and 13.966 respectively. He also got into the individual finals on the AA, FX and VT. On the IAA event, he could not repeat comparable success to the bronze in 2017, only placing seventh in the finals with a 84.531 due to some weaker events like PH. Shirai's final scores on all six events—14.900 on FX, 12.533 on PH, 13.666 on SR, 15.166 on VT, 14.266 on PB, and 14.000 on HB. He has since debuted a simpler-new-with-similar-difficulty-and-one-pass-less floor routine earlier on 29 April at 2018's All-Japan AA Championships by combining the Ri Jong Song and third passes into one harder combination—more connection bonuses. This 7.2-D-score routine was 7.1, but could help to slightly slow body's wear and tear in training/competition. The passes here—1) RO–BH–Shirai 3, 2) RO–BH–1½ punch Shirai 2 punch full, 3) RO–BH–3½ punch double full, 4) RO–BH–2½ punch 2½, and 5) RO–BH–Shirai.

In the individual floor and vault event finals, Shirai was likewise not able to defend his two 2017 gold medals, and could only manage the respective silver and bronze. Shirai posted a combined score of 14.866 in the individual floor exercise apparatus finals, just behind Russia‘s Artur Dalaloyan (14.900), who was the 2018 defending IAA event champion and just barely outplaced Shirai via the cleaner routine. Shirai's even easier floor routine with a D-score of only 6.8 was a bit lower than usual but still more than Dalaloyan's (6.2), of which higher E-score (8.700 vs 8.066) bettered enough Shirai’s combined total. 6 passes in Shirai’s floor routine again then began with 1) RO–BH–Ri Jong Song, 2) front full punch Shirai 2, 3) RO–BH–2½ punch 2½, 4) RO–BH–Shirai, 5) RO–BH–3½ punch full, and 6) RO–BH–triple full to finish. Shirai managed a comparably smaller average combined score of 14.675 in the individual vault event finals because of lower designated D-scores assigned for those skills he executed, particularly the second, behind the eventual silver medallist Dalaloyan (14.883) and gold medallist Ri Se Gwang (14.933) of North Korea, the 2016 Olympic vault champion. Shirai's two vaults had lower D-scores of good significance then—5.6 and 5.2—if compared to the 2018 gold-medal-winning pair of 6.0 each.

It may be appropriate to remind that Shirai competed a significantly simplified floor routine, at times even feeling like it was prepared in a rush, for his standards in the individual floor finals. Shirai's floor-routine-D-scores till then in this quad were always consistently valued 7.2 or 7.1 previously, but at these WC, it was reduced to 6.8. Although that D-score was still the highest among all finalists, the opening loss of up to 0.4 from the routine's combined total was sufficient to effectively lose the gold, but took the silver instead in 2018. Winner Dalaloyan, even with a comparably lower 6.2 routine difficulty, did outscore Shirai via E-score, but only by 0.034 in the end. Also, it is worth informing that Shirai always competed the same two different-family vaults—first a Yurchenko–then forward-entry Tsukahara—in each individual vault final at all but one of the FIG's 2013–2018 major events (every WC but not 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where he captured bronze after he upgraded to the Shirai 2 on vault, or 3½-twisting Yurchenko, for the backward-entry skill), competing better generally from one year to the next. Shirai had continued improving on the standings in the individual vault finals every year. In 2013–2015, Shirai placed fourth, fourth and seventh while in 2017–2018, he won the gold and bronze medals.

'There were 9,512 characters in the section. I have shortened to 1,141.' NguyenDuyAnh1995 (talk) 00:59, 2 July 2022 (UTC)