Asian Games 2023: Flawless Zou Jingyuan delivers home gold on parallel bars
The world and Olympic champion performed a peerless routine to retain his Asian Games parallel bars title on the last day of artistic gymnastics competition in Hangzhou.
Artistic Gymnastics
He is the reigning world and Olympic champion, and on Friday (29 September) Zou Jingyuan was peerless once more to retain his men's artistic gymnastics parallel bars title at the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou 2022 in 2023.
The 25-year-old performs on the parallel bars quite like no one else, and again in Hangzhou the top qualifier for the final made his routine look easy, sending the home Chinese crowd into loud cheers around the arena.
Zou was fluid in his transitions and skills, performing a near-flawless routine that was the only one of the eight in the final to obtain an execution score above nine points (9.433). His total of 15.933 matched his qualifying result and saw him successfully repeat as Asian Games gold medallist.
Behind him were the Japanese pair of Kitazono Takeru (15.233), who had the second-most-difficult routine behind Zou, and Tanigawa Kakeru (15.066). All-around champion Zhang Boheng struggled on his first handstand, having to adjust to maintain his weight. His 14.100 was good for fourth but represented a disappointing final and a big drop-off from qualifying and the all-around.
However, Zhang was later able to redeem his apparatus finals with a strong showing on the horizontal bar, scoring 15.100 to win gold and send the crowd into even more cheers.
Earlier, there was a surprise in the men's vault final as Olympic champion Shin Jea-hwan of the Republic of Korea struggled and finished off the podium. Only fourth in qualification, Shin continued his surprising form in the final, landing his first vault with a low squat that turned into a backwards stagger and a hand down outside the lines. While his second vault was much better, his 14.149 average was not enough to see him win a medal.
Tanigawa's brother Wataru took the vault gold, producing two stuck landings to earn a large 15.016 average score. The Islamic Republic of Iran's Mahdi Olfati and Malaysia's Muhammad Sharul took silver and bronze respectively. There were also gold medals for Japan in women's balance beam (Okamura Mana) and hosts China in the women's floor exercise (Zhang Jin).