A golden birthday for Qi Qi at Chinese gymnastics nationals
The 17-year-old won her second title of this year's event in the floor exercise, while Ji Lianshen took the men's floor exercise.
Artistic Gymnastics
It was a birthday to remember for Qi Qi who won her second gold medal at the Chinese Artistic Gymnastics Championships, on Monday (28 September), the final day of competition.
A day after reclaiming the women’s vault national title in Zhaoqing, the Beijing-based athlete and top-qualifier took the floor exercise gold medal with a score of 14.200.
Wu Ran of Guangdong sealed second place, and Henan’s Lu Yufei finished third to claim her first national medal.
Second-placed qualifier and Chinese team captain at the Rio 2016 Olympics Shang Chunsong was tipped for a medal, but could only manage sixth place.
There were no surprises in the women’s balance beam as Guan Chenchen took top spot.
The Zhejiang athlete, who helped her nation to team silver at the 2019 Junior World Championships, was 0.7 clear of the field in qualifying. But despite her comfortable lead, she was taking nothing for granted after falling in the all-around and the uneven bars events.
She banished those demons with a superb 14.933 performance, while Wei Xiaoyuan finished second. All-around winner Liu Tingting improved her qualifying position by one to finish third.
There was a surprise in the final event of the competition, as Ji Lianshen took the men’s horizontal bar.
Sunday’s floor winner Deng Shudi had been favourite to win alongside joint top qualifier Sun Wei, but the pair didn’t finish in the medals.
Fujian’s Lin Chaopan took silver and Xiang Bagenqiu the bronze.