Asian Games 2023: Oksana Chusovitina misses out on vault medal, finishing fourth
An Chang Ok wins gold in a one-two for D.P.R. Korea, while the hosts' Yu Linmin completed the podium. Meanwhile, men's all-around champion Zhang Boheng had a rare off-day.
Artistic Gymnastics
Oksana Chusovitina narrowly missed out on a remarkable artistic gymnastics medal at the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou on Thursday (28 September) as she agonisingly finished fourth in the women's vault.
Despite there also being a home gymnast in the form of Yu Linmin in the final, some of the Chinese crowd's loudest cheers were reserved for the 48-year-old 'Chuso', or 'Qiu Ma' ("Mother Chusovitina") as she is fondly known in the People's Republic of China.
Chusovitina, the last to compete in the final, had scored 12.949 in qualifying – and with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's An Chang Ok sitting in the lead on an astounding 14.049, the Uzbek knew her realistic target was Yu in third on 13.533.
The gymnastics legend's first vault, which she landed with a big extra step, was surprisingly given a 4.4 difficulty score as she obtained just 12.933. Her second vault, which required a small hop back on landing, earned her 13.233. A successful appeal against the low D-score assigned to her first vault was not enough to push her into the medals, as her overall score moved from 13.083 to 13.383.
That meant An, her teammate Kim Son Hyang (13.600), and Yu were not displaced from their spots on the podium.
Speaking to reporters afterwards, Chusovitina said: "The feeling is good. Unfortunately, fourth place is the nastiest place, but now I know what to do, how to work, and we will aim for the Olympic Games.
"I don't know until what age I will compete. While I like it, while I can do it, I will continue to compete."
Men's all-around champ Zhang has surprising off day
There were surprises in both the men's floor exercise and men's pommel horse finals as mistakes cost home favourite and all-around champion Zhang Boheng the gold in the former and a medal at all in the latter.
Zhang was last to compete on the floor, knowing he needed 14.900 to equal leader Kim Han-sol's score. However, Zhang had to take a big sideways jump on his second pass to stay upright, and also put a toe out of bounds on one of his other passes, earning him a penalty.
As his score of 14.333 came up on screen, the expectant home crowd erupted into murmurs as they soaked in the news. Zhang, graciously, applauded the champion. Republic of Korea's Kim took the gold, with Zhang and Chinese teammate Lin Chaopan (also 14.333, but with a lower difficulty score and same execution score) completing the podium places. Japan's Kawakami Shohei and Tanigawa Wataru both finished off the podium after falling in their routines.
In the pommel horse, Zhang fell twice, while teammate Xiao Ruoteng also came unstuck on the apparatus, with the men finishing eighth and seventh respectively as Chinese Taipei's Lee Chih-Kai – who is also due to compete at the World Championships in Belgium next week – took gold ahead of Japan's Tsumura Ryota and Nariman Kurbanov of Kazakhstan.
Speaking to Olympics.com after his final, Lee confirmed that he would withdraw from Friday's parallel bars final, for which he had also qualified, in favour of travelling to Antwerp.
"I'm rushing to Worlds, so I won't take the field for the parallel bars. I hope this (Asian Games) serves as a good warm-up. It has given me a lot of confidence to tell me that I can face any challenges. I hope the World Championships will go smoothly for me."