Chinese gymnast Xiao Ruoteng competes on the pommel horse during the men's all-around final at the Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday. Photo: VCG

Chinese gymnast Xiao Ruoteng compared himself to a vinyl record.

"The vinyl record couldn't be played too many times, otherwise it will be scratched," he said. "I only play the record on the most important occasions for the audience."

The 25-year-old from Beijing has suffered from serious shoulder injuries which prevented him from practicing difficult movements, and he has spent lots of time in medical treatment. 

Before the Tokyo Olympics, he received cortisone shots. "The most important occasion is coming. I will show the world the best of me."

For his parents, gymnastics training was a good choice for physical exercise. "He was very thin," said Xiao's mom Zhao ­Xiuli. 

"We had a friend in the sports school in Dongcheng district. We wanted to have him do more exercise there so that he could eat more and grow taller."

The boy, only 5 at the time, took to gymnastics like a duck to water, and would look forward to going to the gym all the time. To him, the apparatuses were like toys.

In fact, gymnastics was not the only sport that he was interested in as a child. His parents also sent him to a swimming class. 

"The swimming coach liked me a lot," Xiao said. "Then our anxious gymnastics coach told my mom, 'Gymnastics is the best sport for him.'"

Talent has always been a label for the athlete. Almost all his coaches and teammates said he was born for gymnastics. For a movement that others need to try 10 times to master, he only needs to practice twice.

He got bored sometimes, especially when he was in the Beijing team doing the basic training every day. "You have to do the same thing like 50 times a day," he said. "So many times I felt that I couldn't move on."

Luckily he had a good coach, who was always patient and good-tempered, ­encouraging him to do it again and again.

'Biggest setback'

The first time he felt that the Olympic Games was close to him was in April 2016, when he was competing in trials so as to gain a place in the team to the Rio Olympics.

He injured his ­elbow in the floor exercise. With the sports gala just three months away, Xiao decided not to have surgery. "He needed painkillers every day," said his mom, who wept secretly during those days.

Unfortunately, three months later, his health was still not good enough for him to head for Rio de Janeiro. 

"That was the biggest setback I have ever had," he told local media in Beijing. "The blow came not when you knew you were unable to go in the first place, but when, because of injury, you were left behind at the last minute."

He even considered retiring from the sport. "It was difficult for me to wait a year [to recover], and sometimes I thought about giving up. But, for my love of gymnastics and for all the people who helped me, I had to show them the results of their support, so I persisted in competing," he said.

The gymnast spent about half a year getting out of depression. His coach, teammates, friends and family helped him recover the joy which he felt at the very beginning of his career, the joy of relaxation.

On Monday evening, the Chinese men's gymnastics team claimed the bronze medal in the team event with 261.894 points, 0.606 points behind champions Russia and 0.503 points behind runners-up Japan.

At the men's gymnastics individual all-around final, he impressed ­audiences with outstanding performances in floor exercise, vault and rings, topping the competition after three rotations. He continued to lead the rankings after high-quality parallel bars. But the 19-year-old Japanese Daiki Hashimoto finished with an unparalleled 14.933 in the horizontal bar, and Xiao eventually settled for a silver medal.

Many people questioned the fairness of the grading, including some former gymnasts.

After the competition, Xiao shook hands with Hashimoto to congratulate him.

"My feelings are complicated," he told Xinhua, admitting that he took four painkillers before the competition. 

"I cherish this opportunity to come to Tokyo and I am satisfied with my own performance."