The surest thing at the coming Olympic Games in London — more than the swimmer Michael Phelps, or the sprinter Usain Bolt, or even the American men’s basketball team — may be a 23-year-old Japanese gymnast nicknamed Superman. Four years ago, at the Beijing Games, Kohei Uchimura finished second in the men’s all-around competition, based on his performance in floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar. Since then Uchimura has won three consecutive world championships in the event, something no other male gymnast has done. And he didn’t just edge his way to those golds by hundredths or tenths of a point; he won by overwhelming, multiple-point margins. (In 2009 and 2011, he finished first in four of the six disciplines.) “After he competes in London,” says Tim Daggett, an Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics and a commentator for NBC, “I think he’ll have enough titles . . . to say he’s the greatest that ever lived.”

For Daggett, precision sets Uchimura — his first name Kohei means peaceful flight — apart. “A lot of gymnasts are colorful, aggressive, dynamic — but they don’t have the look that he has,” Daggett says. “His legs are always pencil straight, his toes are always perfectly pointed when he’s doing these crazy, crazy things.” As Steve Butcher, who will be the chief judge for the pommel horse in London, puts it, the expectation is that when Uchimura competes, “you’re going to see something amazing.” (Butcher also notes, “The scary thing for his competitors is that he could continue for one or two Olympic Games after London.”)

Uchimura’s dominance, along with the prospects of his team, which is expected to contend for gold, marks a return to form for Japanese gymnastics. The Olympics, and gymnastics in particular, played an important role in the evolution of postwar Japan. In 1961, the Japanese government passed the Sports Promotion Law to prepare the country for the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo and advance “the development of a bright and high-quality lifestyle for citizens.” Japan became the “kingdom of gymnastics” when its men won five consecutive team golds in the Olympics and five consecutive world championships between 1960 and 1978.