Taiwanese gymnast wins gold in run-up to Paris Olympics
Taiwanese gymnast Tang Chiahung (唐嘉鴻) on Saturday won a gold medal in the men’s horizontal bar competition at the Doha World Cup, extending a run of dominant performances in the lead-up to the Paris Summer Olympics.
The Doha event was the last of four competitions making up the International Gymnastics Federation’s Artistic Gymnastics World Cup series, which serve as qualification events for the Paris Games to be held from July 26 through Aug. 11.
Tang, 27, already won gold medals in horizontal bar at the series’ first two stops in Cairo and Cottbus, Germany, in February, and officially secured an Olympic berth at the third competition in Baku, Azerbaijan, last month.
In the final at Doha, Tang soared to another first-place finish with a total score of 15.133, based on an execution score of 8.633 on a routine with a difficulty score of 6.5.
He was followed by Robert Tvorogal of Lithuania, who won a silver medal with a score of 14.7, and Brazil’s Arthur Mariano, who took bronze with a score of 14.533.
Meanwhile, Ting Hua-tien (丁華恬) became the second Taiwanese gymnast to qualify for the Paris Games following her performance in the women’s balance beam competition in Doha.
She scored 12.6 points to take ninth place in beam qualifications, adding 16 to her Olympic qualification ranking points to finish with 57 and place third overall in the event.
Ting needed help from other favorable results, as Nina Derwael of Belgium had qualified for the Paris Olympics in leading the event at 90 ranking points after the Baku competition, followed by Laura Casabuena of Spain with 61 points.
As the Spaniard qualified for the Olympics on floor exercises, Ting was able to take the beam spot.
Separately, Lai Kuan-chieh (賴冠傑) yesterday became the first Taiwanese canoeist to qualify for the Olympics after winning a silver medal at the Asian Canoe Sprint Championships in Tokyo.
Lai finished in 4 minutes, 11.577 seconds in the men’s C-1 1km sprint final, edging Miao Feilong of China by 0.297 seconds for the final Olympic qualification spot.
Mohammad Nabi Rezaei of Iran won the race to also qualify for the Olympics in 4:10.98.
Lai’s finish was not a complete surprise given that he was the first canoeist from Taiwan to win a gold medal at last year’s Asian Games in the same event.