LONDON: China’s gold-medal blitz at the World Gymnastics Championships continued on Sunday as Deng Linlin, Wang Guanyin and Zou Kai won individual titles at the O2 Arena.
On a day hosts Great Britain were able to celebrate a gold thanks to Beth Tweddle in the women’s floor exercise, China again showed why they are the dominant force in international gymnastics at present.
Deng, 17, produced an excellent routine packed with difficulty to see off Australian Lauren Mitchell to the women’s beam title before Wang edged compatriot Feng Zhe to gold on the parallel bars.
In the last final of the championships, Olympic champion Zou was the winner of a high-quality field in the men’s high bar.
It took China’s final gold-medal tally at the championships to six — He Kexin, Zhang Hongtao and Yan Mingyong won titles on Saturday. The nation picked up seven individual golds in last year’s Olympic Games in Beijing.
Romania’s Marian Dragulescu, in the men’s vault, was the other gold medalist on the tournament’s fourth and final day.
Deng, who won team gold with the Chinese at the Beijing Games, picked up her first major individual title with a fantastic score of 15.000 points.
She was run close by Mitchell, who grabbed silver with 14.875 points, and Ivana Hong of the United States was third.
Deng, a specialist on the beam, threw in a mix of gymnastic and acrobatic elements to her routine, with one move — a double back-flip and high straight back-somersault — midway through particularly impressing the crowd.
She also nailed the landing to her finishing move, which consisted of two back-flips and a double-pike dismount.
Zou followed up his gold-medal display in Beijing with another thrilling exhibition here.
Performing the most difficult routine of all the eight qualifiers, he was a class above and the only competitor to go above 16.000 points — he scored 16.150.
Epke Zonderland, of the Netherlands, was a surprise silver medalist and Italy’s Igor Cassina, the 2004 Olympic champion, took bronze.
Wang and Zeng stole the show in the parallel bars, the former beating his teammate by just 0.200. Japan’s Kazuhito Tanaka took the bronze.
Tweddle, the 2006 world champion on the uneven bars, thrilled the home crowd with a routine of excellent tumbling combinations to open the event.
Her score of 14.650 held out despite the best efforts of Mitchell, who finished just 0.100 behind to claim her second silver of the day. China’s Sui Lu took bronze.
