Following the withdrawal of Japan’s Kohei Uchimura due to injury, a new world champion was crowned for the first time since 2009 at the Montreal Olympic Stadium.

Two thirds of the way through the final, a tenth of a point separated the top three of Xiao, Russia's David Belyavskiy and Japan's Kenzo Shirai.

With a sublime display on the parallel bars, Belyavskiy began to pull away from the field as he mounted the high bar to begin his final routine.

However, a fall on a moderately difficult element ruined any chance he head of taking gold.

That allowed Xiao to swoop in and take the title on a total score of 86.933 points.

His Chinese teammate Lin Chaopan finished second with 86.448 while Shirai clinched bronze with his total of 86.431.

Belyavskiy devastatingly finished fourth on 86.315, having also missed the podium at Rio 2016 by a few hundredths of a point. 

After coming within 0.099 of beating Uchimura at Rio 2016, current Olympic silver medallist Oleg Verniaiev produced a disappointing performance.

After a slow start in the floor exercise, the Ukrainian saw his chances of finishing first begin to evaporate when he fell off the pommel horse.

He lost his balance on the parallel bars, his best event, and fell again on the horizontal bar, knocking him down to eighth place on 83.997.

First in qualification, Cuba's Manrique Larduet was another favourite for gold today.

However, the 2015 World Championships all-around silver medallist missed the podium by four tenths of a point, finishing fifth on 86.031.

Action is due to continue tomorrow with the women's all-around final before apparatus finals take place on October 7 and 8.