2007 Uchimura joined the Japanese national squad in 2007, In August at the
2007 Summer Universiade in
Bangkok, he won the team title, and individual gold and bronze on respective floor exercise and vault. At
Japan's National Championships in October, he got 7th on individual all-around. A month later at the international "Good Luck Beijing" event, he won team silver with
Japan's team, and ranked 7th on floor exercise.
2008 Uchimura started the 2008 season by winning gold on floor at the World Cup in
Tianjin in May. Later that summer, he was selected to represent Japan at the
2008 Olympic Games in
Beijing as a member of the national team. At the Olympics, he contributed to the team silver by competing on floor, vault, parallel bars, and high bar. He qualified for the
all-around final, where he won the silver medal. His 2nd place win behind China's
Yang Wei gave Japan its first Olympic medal in the event in 24 years. He obtained the highest mark of that meet on the floor 15.825 (double Arabian piked half out, triple twist dismount) and had a spectacular high bar routine (
Kolman, piked Kovacs). He also qualified through to the floor final, where he placed fifth.
2009 In October 2009, Uchimura competed at the
2009 World Championships. Here, he dominated both the qualifications and the all around final. He won the all around title by a margin of 2.575 points ahead of
Daniel Keatings, marking top scores for
floor,
rings,
vault, and
horizontal bar. Uchimura placed fourth on floor and sixth on high bar as well.
2011 On October 14, 2011, Uchimura won the all-around final for the third time at the
2011 World Championships in
Tokyo, Japan. With a score of 93.631 points, Uchimura won by a margin of 3.101 points, roughly the same margin that separated second and fourteenth place. Not only is he the first male gymnast to win three individual all-around titles, but Uchimura is also the first gymnast, male or female, to win three consecutive individual all-around titles. In the all-around final, Uchimura recorded the highest score on four of the six events: floor exercise, still rings, parallel bars, and pommel horse (he tied for the highest score on pommel horse). Uchimura also qualified for five of the six individual apparatus finals, all except vault. He won his first World Championship gold medal on floor exercise, as well as a bronze medal on high bar and the silver medal with the Japanese team. At the
2011 Worlds, Uchimura also won the
Longines Prize for Elegance along with Romania's
Ana Porgras. The prize is given at each World Championships to the male and female gymnasts who demonstrate "the most remarkable elegance". The winners were unanimously declared by a panel of judges, where both Uchimura and Porgras were each awarded a trophy, a
Longines watch, and US$5,000. He was especially pleased to win this award since he collects watches. In November 2011, Uchimura won four gold medals at the 65th
Japanese Championships. Besides all-around, he also took titles on half the apparatuses: floor exercise, pommel horse, and high bar.
2012 Uchimura competed in the
London 2012 Olympics in
London and fell several times in qualifications, which put him in ninth place among the group of qualifiers for the individual all-around final. In the men's team gymnastics final, Uchimura fell from the pommel horse during his dismount. The Japanese coaches appealed the scoring on this performance as he still landed on his feet and felt it should have counted as a full dismount, albeit with a large penalty. Before the appeal,
Great Britain were to get the silver and
Ukraine the bronze, but the appeal pushed
Japan's points total up to secure the silver behind
China, which pushed
Great Britain down to the bronze. In the men's individual all-around final, Uchimura dominated the competition and won the gold medal with a score of 92.690. He also won the silver medal in the men's floor exercise event final with a score of 15.800, thanks to the tie-breaking procedure. It was automatically triggered due to his second highest combined score in the final tying the one by
Denis Ablyazin of
Russia, who did have the highest difficulty score of 7.1 among all finalists due to more passes. Unfortunately when there is a tie, the gymnast instead with the higher execution score will place ahead, which was Uchimura who posted the highest execution of 9.100 in the final.
2013 During qualifications Uchimura dominated, garnering an all-around total of 91.924, which was 2.392 points ahead of the closest competitor. He qualified for the floor exercise finals in third place with a 15.333, first for the parallel bars final with 15.400, and third for the high bar final with a 15.658. He qualified as a reserve for the pommel horse final with a 15.133. Uchimura won a record fourth consecutive all-around gold medal at the
2013 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in
Antwerp. Uchimura finished with 91.990 points, almost two points ahead of the next nearest competitor. Uchimura also won bronze medals on floor exercise (15.500) behind
Japan's 17-year-old newcomer
Kenzō Shirai (16.000) and
Jacob Dalton of the United States (15.600), and the horizontal bar (15.633) behind
Epke Zonderland of the
Netherlands (16.000) and
Fabian Hambüchen of
Germany (15.933), as well as a gold medal for parallel bars (15.666). His total of four individual medals is the highest number of medals Uchimura has earned at a single World Championships.
2014 On October 9, 2014, Uchimura once again made history, winning a record fifth consecutive world championship all-around gold at
Nanning. He totaled 91.965 points, 1.492 points above Great Britain's
Max Whitlock to capture the title. Uchimura also secured the silver on the horizontal bar apparatus after he posted scores that sandwiched them between those by
Epke Zonderland (Netherlands), who won the gold, and
Marijo Možnik (Croatia), who took the bronze.
2015 On October 30, 2015, Uchimura won a record sixth all-around world gymnastics championship title, achieving a total score of 92.332, more than 1.6 points ahead of Cuban teenager
Manrique Larduet and
Deng Shudi of
China. Uchimura started off on the floor with a 15.733, and led Deng by 0.600 after the first rotation. Then on pommel horse, he scored a 15.100. He would continued with a 14.933 on rings, 15.633 on vault, and 15.833 on parallel bars before wrapping things up with a 15.100 on the horizontal bar, one of his best apparatuses, on which he had also taken a fall, just a few days before in the team competition. Uchimura would then go on to win the horizontal bar apparatus final as well with a score of 15.833 ahead of
Danell Leyva (United States) and
Larduet. However, what was even more significant was that Uchimura led
Japan to victory in the team event final where they defeated
Great Britain and
China. This was their first team gold since the 1978 World Championships in
Strasbourg.
2016 Uchimura competed in the
2016 Summer Olympics in
Rio de Janeiro. In the men's team all-around final, team captain Uchimura anchored the Japanese men to win the team gold medal with a total score of 274.094, reclaiming the title for
Japan and the first time since the
2004 Summer Olympics in
Athens. Two days after the final of team event, Uchimura defended his individual all-around (AA) gold medal with a total score of 92.365, becoming the first gymnast in 44 years to win back-to-back individual all-around (IAA) golds at the Olympics. With his individual all-around silver medal from the
2008 Summer Olympics in
Beijing, he also became only the second man in history after countryman
Sawao Kato, who also won two golds and one silver in the individual all-around competition across the
1968 Mexico City,
1972 Munich and
1976 Montreal Olympics, to medal on the men's individual all-around event at three Olympic Games. His winning margin over silver medallist
Oleg Verniaiev of
Ukraine was extremely slim at only 0.099, less than a small step deduction on landing in terms of gymnastics scoring.
2017 At the
2017 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in
Montreal, his world all-around champion streak that began in 2009 came to an end when he injured his ankle on the vault landing in qualification, forcing him to withdraw. This led to his long win-streak at worlds and Olympics being unexpectedly broken for the only time since he started winning the first of his six World Championships all-around title to begin the 2009 quad, and continue over the next two complete Olympic cycles (approximately 8 years), ending them by winning his second Olympic all-around title in 2016. This was also the first time in 9 years since before 2008 that he did not medal, namely silver and/or gold medals, at one of the
FIG's major competitions—the Olympics or World Championships.
2018–2019 Between October 25 and November 3, 2018, Uchimura competed at the
2018 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in
Doha but on a reduced schedule. During the team event final, he had helped
Team Japan secure the bronze medal behind team event champion
China and runner-up
Russia by contributing scores to four apparatuses—pommel horse (14.133), rings (14.200), parallel bars (14.500) and high bar (14.400). Uchimura also qualified for the individual event final on the horizontal bar, winning the silver with a score of 14.800 behind the 2012 Olympic high bar champion,
Epke Zonderland of the
Netherlands, who scored a 15.100. Uchimura did not compete in any significant competitions during the 2019 season due to injuries.
2020–2021 At the age of 32, Uchimura qualified for the
2020 Summer Olympics in
Tokyo, Japan, his fourth and home Olympic Games, as an apparatus specialist on the horizontal bar after a tiebreak in the selection process worked in his favour. He has expressed earlier that he could still contribute positively to the Japanese team but perhaps not with the kind of gruelling physical requirements that are necessary for an all-arounder anymore. At the Olympics, Uchimura did not qualify for the high bar finals after placing 20th due to mistake in the qualifying round, and decided to skip the parallel bars event. The eventual gold medalist in the individual all-around and horizontal bar finals was countryman
Daiki Hashimoto (most successful gymnast at these Games and also considered to be Uchimura's heir apparent), who at 19 years, 11 months and 21 days old became
Japan's second youngest teen gold medal gymnast (lost by only six days to
Kenzō Shirai at the
2016 Summer Games), as well as their youngest ever individual gold medal gymnast in Olympic history on the individual all-around (AA) and high bar events. On October 18–24, 2021, competing at home in
Kitakyushu,
Japan, Uchimura, oldest at 32 years, 9 months and 21 days old, was selected as part of the Japanese world championship team in
artistic gymnastics (
AG) as an apparatus specialist to compete only on the individual horizontal bar event. He qualified in fifth place with a score of 14.300 for the event final where he finished in sixth place with a score of 14.600. This was long intended to be his final competition, concluding an illustrious career, which many would consider him the best of all time. His apparent successor, the men's 2020 Olympics individual all-around and horizontal bar champion,
Hashimoto, was the top individual horizontal bar qualifier with a score of 14.633. For the same two individual events, he earned himself two silver medals in the individual all-around and horizontal bar finals instead with scores of 87.964 and 14.600.
Hu Xuwei and
Zhang Boheng, both of
China, respectively won the men's individual all-around and horizontal bar events with scores of 87.981 and 15.166. Lastly,
Hashimoto placed fourth in the men's individual parallel bars finals with a score of 15.000, but also withdrew from the men's individual pommel horse and floor exercise finals, for which he qualified too. ==Retirement==