Daiki Hashimoto of Japan sealed the men's all-around title in Antwerp on his favoured horizontal bar ©Getty Images

Japan's Olympic champion Daiki Hashimoto staged a successful defence of his men's all-around title at the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in the Belgian city of Antwerp.

Hashimoto was selected as one of Japan's two representatives in the final at Antwerp Sportpaleis, even though he had been beaten by compatriots Kenta Chiba and Kazuma Kaya in qualifying.

After stumbles in the floor exercise earned him just 13.466 points, Hashimoto improved with each rotation, ranking second behind Chiba with 14.366 on the pommel horse, second behind China's Sun Wei with 14.000 on the rings, second behind Britain's Jake Jarman with 15.000 on the vault and third with 14.800 on the parallel bars.

He topped the standings going into his routine on the favoured horizontal bar, on which he is the Olympic champion, and sealed gold with a top-scoring 14.500.

That ensured Hashimoto finished 86.132.

His closest challenger was Ukraine's Illia Kovtun, who took silver with a total of 84.998.

Fred Richard became the United States' first men's all-around medallist since 2010 with 84.332 to earn bronze.

Chiba placed fourth on his World Championships debut with 83.464.

Commonwealth Games champion Jarman was fourth in qualifying, but had to settle for 13th place in the final with a score of 81.198, finishing behind compatriot James Hall who was ninth with 82.331.

The FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships is set to continue tomorrow with the women's all-around final.