More medals were awarded at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool. China beat Japan in a thrilling men’s team final on Wednesday.
With parallel bars Olympic champion Zou Jingyuan, record world champion China has won the gold medal in the team competition for the 13th time. The squad from the Middle Kingdom won ahead of ex-champion Japan and Great Britain. The three teams are thus also qualified for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
After Olympic bronze, now world title for China
The approximately 8,000 spectators in the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool saw a gripping final characterized by numerous falls, in which the Chinese gymnastics squad with Yang Jiaxing, Zhang Boheng, Sun Wei, You Hao and Zou Jingyuan was able to beat the favored Japanese. With a total of 257.858 points, the Chinese won ahead of Japan (253.395) and Great Britain (247.229). Japan had won the qualifying round for the final with a lead of almost eight points.
This is how the team final at the World Gymnastics Championships works
Eight nations qualified for the men’s team final: Japan, Great Britain, USA, China, Italy, Spain, Brazil and South Korea. In the final, teams must compete on six apparatus: floor, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and high bar. Each team consists of five gymnasts, but only three will use the apparatus at a time. Each result is included in the overall ranking, the team with the highest total number of points wins gold.
The Japanese and the British are weak on the pommel horse
Japan took the lead after the first apparatus – the floor. On the other hand, the Japanese gymnasts showed unusual weaknesses on the pommel horse. Both Kakeru Tanigawa and Ryosuke Doi were forced off the apparatus, causing the Japanese squad to slip to sixth place after two rounds. The British hosts could not get anything on the pommel horse either. The performance of all-around European champion Joe Fraser, who showed the third weakest exercise of the evening on this device with 10.466 points, was particularly disappointing.
China constant, Japan’s Hashimoto also slips up
The Chinese scored the most points on the pommel horse, who also knew how to convince with consistent performances and the fewest mistakes. Halfway through the apparatus, they were already around 2.5 points ahead of the Brazilians, who were second at the time. They gambled away the bronze medal on the pommel horse. Poor practice dropped them to seventh place.
And Japan continued to make mistakes. The otherwise so safe all-around Olympic champion Hashimoto got deductions when jumping. He also grabbed his favorite piece of equipment, the horizontal bar, and landed on the mat.
China, on the other hand, diligently collected points on every device and gradually increased its lead. Zhang Boheng, for example, showed the best exercise on vault (14.966). The best score of the evening was achieved by Olympic champion Zou Jingyuan on his parade apparatus, bars (15.766 points). And even on the last device, the Chinese kept their nerve – and their leadership.
Fraser makes an emotional comeback
The hosts and Joe Fraser provided the emotional highlight. The 23-year-old Briton, who was still struggling on the pommel horse, scored 15.00 points on parallel bars and put his team back in the medal race. On the last piece of apparatus, the high bar, the Britons withstood the pressure of expectations from the home crowd: Fraser and his teammates Jake Jarman and James Hall stayed cool, stood their ground and, to the loud cheers of the British fans, pushed the Italian team away from the bronze medal Rank.
German squad not in the final
The German team did not make it into the final in the qualifying round on Monday evening. For the team with Lukas Dauser, Nils Dunkel, Andreas Toba, Pascal Brendel and Glenn Trebing, the targeted eighth place could no longer be reached before the last round of the preliminary round. After several falls, the team of national coach Valeri Belenki ended up in ninth place and was only one place away from entering the medal decision.
Dauser continues as the only German
Only Dauser can compete for medals. With 80.431 points and 18th place, he was the only German to make it into the individual all-around final on Friday. The silver medalist at last year’s Summer Olympics was rewarded with 15.40 points for his exercise on his flagship device, bars. He’s reaching for medals in Sunday’s decider in third place in qualifying.
