MONTREAL (AP) Kohei Uchimura gave up his attempt to win a seventh successive world all-around gymnastics title after he injured his left ankle in qualifying late Monday.
Uchimura began on the rings, and was visibly hurt landing his vault. The Japanese star limped away but competed on the parallel bars. He stopped competing before the horizontal bar.
His decision brought an end to a remarkable winning streak: Uchimura had won every major all-around title since 2009, his first world title. His streak included the Olympics in 2012 and 2016.
Uchimura ranks second on the list of male gymnasts with the most medals at the worlds: 19, 10 of them gold.
Before these worlds, he said his main goal was to put in a perfect performance because ''I've never had the feeling that my performances were perfect at the six world championships I've done. If I manage that, the results should follow.''
Manrique Larduet of Cuba, the 2015 worlds silver medalist, led after the first day of qualifying. Xiao Ruoteng of China and David Belyavskiy of Russia rounded out the top three.
Qualifying ends on Tuesday. The men's finals are on Thursday.
