is a Japanese men's former athlete of artistic gymnastics (AG). Born in Yokohama, Kanagawa, he, a graduate of Kishine High School, joined the Nippon Sport Science University (Nittaidai). Shirai took the team gold, and a bronze on individual vault with the Japanese men's AG (MAG) national team at the 2016 Summer Olympics (OG) in Rio de Janeiro while more major wins were from the World Championships (WC).
Early life
Like his older brothers, Shirai 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 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 of men and women's AG (WAG) also trained, including mentor Kōhei Uchimura.
Career
Six eponyms, three each on floor exercise (FX) and vault (VT), were named after Shirai as he was the first to perform all successfully at a federation-approved international. He was the face of Japanese MAG national team in 2013–2018 until injury thus halted/ended career. Shirai retired on June 16, 2021, after not making the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
2013
Barely 17, Shirai was youngest man participating at the 2013 World Championships in Antwerp. On FX, he qualified on top with a 16.233, 0.633 over next male, Brazil's Diego Hypólito, and became youngest ever men’s WC FX winner there. "Historic" 22¼ twists with 7.4 difficulty score (D-score) secured the first major at only 17 years, 1 month and 11 days old. Shirai's 16.000 final total got 0.4 win-margin over American runner-up Jacob Dalton. Sport analyst Tim Daggett declared live on-air that "there is no way Shirai doesn't win this" just before Shirai began his final FX routine where he "twisted his way to first gold medal". On VT, Shirai was again ranked on top in qualifying, but only managed to place fourth in finals.
Three out of all eponymous skills for MAG were also officially verified after in Belgium. Shirai successfully completed the 1) Shirai-Kim or Shirai on VT (Yurchenko—all VTing skills with round off [RO]–back handspring [BH] entries, originated by Soviet Natalia Yurchenko at Moscow's 1982 meet—a "triple-twisting Yurchenko"/"TTY" or triple [3/1] twist), 2) Shirai-Nguyen or Shirai on FX ([backward] quadruple [4/1]-twisting layout), and 3) Shirai 2 on FX (forward [layout] triple twist).
2014
Shirai secured Japan team silver at the 2014 World Championships in Nanning—only 0.1 trailing winner and host China. He made individual FX and VT finals again. On FX, despite having much larger D-score, he struggled with the execution score (E-score). In his third pass, an out-of-bound step resulted in a 0.1 penalty that cost him the gold, just 0.017 behind Russia's Denis Ablyazin. On VT, Shirai had top E-scores, but lower D-score on second VT dragged him down to fourth.
2015
At the 2015 World Championships in Glasgow with Japan's national MAG team, Shirai took all-around (AA) gold in team finals for first time since 1978. Shirai posted men’s top FX score of the whole meet, and it was also the only value above 16.000 points. In the individual event finals, Shirai qualified for both FX and VT, winning former and ranking 7th on latter. Posting a 16.233, the 7.6-difficulty FX routine started with at least 0.8 above the rest. Such high scores were due to high connection bonuses of various skills and combinations that ended passes facing forwards with blind landings, risking his combination lines. He also began competing "double (2/1)-somersault" (2 revolutions) skills on FX with high consistency.
Over Toyota Cup in December, Shirai verified his 4th eponym for MAG—the Shirai 3 on FX, or (a) "triple-double" layout. The extremely high difficulty skill let him become one of the men's gymnasts, who originated one of just four eponymous skills with then top MAG D-score of H (0.8) until their next new, top I (0.9) was created to help score future hardest skills.
2016
2016 Summer Olympics
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 Japanese men's squad took the title in the team AA (TAA) finals. Both of Shirai's contributions for team total on VT and FX with 15.633 and 16.133 respectively were top values of his two apparatuses at the entire event.