×The Toyota Cup, the successor to Japan's traditional Chunichi Cup, began Saturday in Toyota. A small field of 26 gymnasts nevertheless attracted an audience of 4,000 to the Toyota Sky Hall.

Japan's top team was present, and did not disappoint the crowd, with titles for Makamoto Okiguchi on floor exercise and Takuya Nakase on still rings. Keiko Mukumoto won both women's vault and uneven bars in a slim field.

Hungarian specialist Krisztian Berki won pommel horse.

At men's floor exercise, after a long discussion at the judge panel, Okiguchi got 6.6 at A score and won his favorite event. Uchimura followed him with 15.700 (A 6.5) to take second place.

Uchimura explained at later press conference that he decided to concentrate on floor and withdraw from parallel bars. "At Friday's training my performance at bars was worse than I had expected, so I decided to do only floor in this competition. I thought I could do well at floor even though I hadn't done enough training. Today, landings were not so good, I got a good landing only at the third tumbling pass. However I think I could show the beauty of my gymnastics."

American Guillermo Alvarez took the bronze on floor exercise. Mike Burns, coach of Alvarez, described the competition to IG.

"The Japanese routines were very crisp and clean," he said. "Guillermo had a great set with a well-landed Arabian double front mount. His second pass was a front layout to Randi, third pass was whip 2 1/2, and the fourth pass was front double full, front full. A very good Gogoladze and Manna in the corner then a strong double layout with a small hop on the dismount put him in third place."

Oklahoma gymnast Steven Legendre finished in a tie for fifth.

"Legendre had a great routine going but ran into some trouble on his fifth pass which is a double front punch, front 1/1," Burns explained. "He came up short on the double front and punched but got nothing but a small dive roll out of it. Because of this the judges need to find an A move to replace the C front full, and when they used a back handspring to count as the A move, it gave him too many Element Group 3 skills. The posted Start Value was 15.9 but then judge Brian Meeker was able to call the 'dive roll' an A move and was able to bring the start value back up to a 16.4. Unfortunately, he was hit with a 0.3 ND for being overtime but there was controversy due to the fact that the second bell was never rung."

Pommel horse was the only title not won by Japan, but nevertheless was Saturday's main event because it marked the farewell performance of two-time Olympian Takehiro Kashima. The 2003 world champion almost fell off the horse on his Wu element, however, which Burns called "an amazing save on a Wu that was pretty much in dead stop. He picked his circle back up and finished pretty strong."

"This was my last performance, so I really didn't want to fall, and I tried my best to stay on," said Kashima, a member of Japan's gold-medal team at the 2004 Olympics and silver-medal team at the 2008 Olympics.

Despite his sixth place, Kashima said he was satisfied with his performance. He received many flowers from local club gymnasts at his retirement ceremony. His smile never disappeared today.

"At first, I thought I would retire just after the Olympics," said Kashima, 28. "However, after talking with people, I wanted to make a final performance for my fans, who had supported me for a long time. I thought this final performance would be a good end for me, too. Many people have told me that my performance at pommel horse was beautiful and many people loved it. So, I am happy that I can finish with this event. I was so glad to hear cheering from fans before this competition. My gymnastics life of 25 years was really full of happiness. So many people supported me."

Nakase won rings, but was critical of his performance. "Since it's just after the Japanese Nationals, I couldn't practice enough," he said. "I think my stops at elements were a bit shorter, however I'm good at swings and the landing today went well."

The Toyota Cup couldn't attract many women's gymnasts, due to rival competitions this weekend with the DTB Cup and the Asian Championships in Doha. To make matters worse, Germany's Lisa Katharina Hill withdrew after injuring her knee in the training session.

The field does boast Romanian Olympic gold medalist Sandra Izbasa, who was fourth on vault Saturday. She is expected to dominate Sunday's competition on balance beam and floor exercise.

×2nd Toyota International Cup
Nov. 15, 2008, Toyota City

Men's Floor Exercise
1. Makoto Okiguchi JPN 15.750
2. Kohei Uchimura JPN 15.700
3. Guillermo Alvarez USA 15.550
4. Alin Jivan ROM 15.000
5. Daniel Popescu ROM 14.800
5. Steve Legendre USA 14.800
7. Ji Hoon Kim KOR 14.550

Pommel Horse
1. Krisztian Berki HUN 15.500
2. Daniel Popescu ROM 15.400
3. Guo Weiyang CHN 15.250
4. Koki Sakamoto JPN 15.100
5. Ji Hoon Kim KOR 15.000
6. Takehiro Kashima JPN 14.850
7. Alexander Tsarevich BLR 14.750
8. Guillermo Alvarez USA 14.300

Still Rings
1. Takuya Nakase JPN 15.900
2. Won Chul Yoo KOR 15.750
3. Koki Sakamoto JPN 15.700
4. Robert Stanescu ROM 15.550
5. Guo Weiyang CHN 15.300
6. Alin Jivan ROM 14.400
7. Wang Guanyin CHN 12.500

Women's Vault
1. Keiko Mukumoto JPN 13.850
2. Susann Herbst GER 13.450
3. Arisa Tominaga JPN 12.700
4. Sandra Izbasa ROM 12.150
Exhibition: Mizuho Nagai JPN 13.775

Uneven Bars
1. Keiko Mukumoto JPN 15.000
2. Mayu Kuroda JPN 13.950
3. Susann Herbst GER 13.050
Exhibition: Arisa Tominaga JPN 14.350

×
The Romanian gymnasts won two gold medals Sunday as the Toyota Cup concluded in Japan.
The Toyota Cup featured a small field, but the competition hall was packed again. The event gave the Japanese fans one more time to see star Hiroyuki Tomita in action before he ends his career at next month's World Cup Final in Madrid.

The Romanians dominated men's vault, finishing 1-2. Popescu showed excellent height and speed with a stuck landing on his Lopez to catch the audience's eyes. He also had a good landing at his second vault, a full-twisting layout Rudi to win. Teammate Alin Jivan followed him with 1 1/2-twisting layout Kasamatsu and layout Rudi. American Steve Legendre won the bronze with a handspring double front and 1 1/2-twisting Kasamatsu.

The Asian gymnasts swept the medals on the other events, with China's Wang Guanyin (7.0 A Score) winning parallel bars and Korea's Kim Ji Hoon (7.2 A Score) winning high bar.

Sunday's main player, however, was definitely Tomita, who presented his final performances in Japan. Before his parallel bars routine, the audience cheered him on during a judging delay.

"I was moved but tried to concentrate on my performance," Tomita said. "After waiting for a while, I was afraid that the bar might be dry. When I started, I felt that the bars tend to slip out of my hand, so I changed the order of my skills to do the Belle first. "

On high bar, Tomita decided to do the performance with higher A score. "At first I was not sure to raise my A score but I wanted to show my best performance to the last. Landing is the clearest thing to appeal to the audience, so I wanted a perfect landing. At parallel bars, I couldn't stick it but at high bar I managed it. Feeling that supported from the audience made me do it."

On beam, Olympic floor exercise champion Sandra Izbasa (Romania) sat down her dismount of 2 1/2 twist. This gave Kuroda a chance to win.

"I made a big mistake on uneven bars yesterday, so I tried to concentrate on each skill and do it carefully. I think I did well throughout the routine, in spite of a little wobble and the landing," Kuroda said.

Izbasa took her revenge at her favorite event, floor, winning the title with a 15.500 (A 6.3). Izbasa seemed a bit tired after a long flight to Japan, but she was satisfied with her floor exercise performance Sunday and now heads to Madrid with one more competition behind her.

×2008 Toyota Cup
Nov. 16, 2008, Toyota, Japan

Men's Vault
1. Daniel Popescu ROM 16.000
2. Alin Jivan ROM 15.900
3. Steve Legendre USA 15.825
4. Makoto Okiguchi JPN 15.075
5. Guo Weiyang CHN 13.550
6. Wang Guanyin CHN 13.475
7. Alexander Tsarevich 13.450

Parallel Bars
1. Wang Guanyin CHN 16.350
2. Hiroyuki Tomita JPN 15.850
3. Yoo Won Chul KOR 15.550
4. Alexander Tsarevich BLR 15.400
5. Robert Stanescu ROM 14.500
6. Steve Legendre USA 14.450
7. Guo Weiyang CHN 14.000
8. Guillermo Alvarez USA 12.750

High Bar
1. Kim Ji Hoon KOR 16.250
2. Hiroyuki Tomita JPN 15.850
3. Takuya Nakase JPN 15.800
4. Guo Weiyang CHN 15.650
5. Alexander Tsarevich BLR 14.650
6. Steve Legendre USA 14.600

Balance Beam
1. Mayu Kuroda JPN 15.300
2. Sandra Izbasa ROM 15.150
3. Momoko Ozawa JPN 14.950
4.Susann Herbst 14.400
Exhibition: Sayuri Minobe JPN 14.500

Women's Floor Exercise
1. Sandra Izbasa ROM 15.500
2. Sayuri Minobe JPN 14.150
3. Momoko Ozawa JPN 13.650
4. Susann Herbst GER 13.150
Exhibition: Mizuho Nagai JPN 14.100)