The 2022 World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool have recently concluded, with 14 gold medals for their own hands. In the medal table, the American team ranked first with 3 golds, 4 silvers and 1 bronze, the Chinese team ranked second with 3 golds and 2 silvers, and the Japanese team ranked third with 2 golds, 3 silvers and 3 bronzes. The three countries won a total of eight gold medals, and the other six events were taken by the United Kingdom, Brazil, Armenia, Turkey and Ireland. Of the five medals of the Chinese team, four were won by the men's team, namely the team gold medal, Zou Jingyuan's parallel bars gold medal and ring silver medal, and Zhang Boheng's individual all-around silver medal.
Group competition is more "difficult" than "stable"
The Chinese team attaches the most importance to the team event. This World Championships is not only the first time that gymnastics events use the new rules of the Paris Olympic cycle, but also the qualification competition of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. In the qualifying round, the Chinese team, consisting of Sun Wei, Zhang Boheng, Yang Jiaxing, You Hao and Zou Jingyuan, played poorly and advanced to the fourth place. Japan finished first in qualifying, 7.902 points ahead of second-placed Great Britain and 10.766 points ahead of China. Fortunately, the young men of the Chinese team performed consistently in the team finals, with the fewest mistakes among the eight teams, ranking first in the five disciplines of horizontal bar, pommel horse, rings, vault and parallel bars, and finally won the men's team championship of the World Championships for the 13th time in history, while locking a qualification for the Paris Olympics.
Along with China, they qualified for the Paris Olympics, along with runners-up Japan and third-place Great Britain.
The men's team championship battle is mainly between China and Japan. Judging from the performance of the World Championships, the battle between China and Japan may continue to be staged at the Paris Olympics. Zou Jingyuan, You Hao and Sun Wei are all members of the Tokyo Olympics, because Xiao Ruoteng's injury has not healed, the two newcomers of the World Championships, Zhang Boheng and Yang Jiaxing, joined, such a "new and old combination" Chinese team "counterattacked" to win the championship, which is undoubtedly a great boost to the morale of the team.
The Chinese men's team, which qualified for the Paris Olympics in advance, can then polish its skills in a down-to-earth manner, calmly inspect newcomers and strengthen the team. After the team final format returned to 533, the Chinese men's team had stronger competition competitiveness and the possibility of creating good results.
The Chinese team will still be the strongest contender for the men's team title at the Paris Olympics. But it is definitely not to underestimate the enemy, in addition to the old rival Japan, the British team and the American team should not be underestimated. This World Championships allows us to see a rapidly improving British team, they won a total of 2 gold medals in men's and women's floor exercise, 1 silver and 3 bronze, of which the men's and women's teams have qualified for the Paris Olympics, becoming one of the strong opponents of the Chinese team in the Paris Olympic cycle.
The battle for the almighty king is still in the new generation of China and Japan
The men's individual all-around title was fought between China's Zhang Boheng and Japan's Daiki Hashimoto.
These two are undoubtedly the best all-rounders in men's gymnastics in the world today. At last year's World Championships, Zhang Boheng won the championship by defeating Daiki Hashimoto by a narrow margin of 0.017 points to win his first World Championship all-around title; at this year's World Championships, Daiki Hashimoto defeated Zhang Boheng by 0.433 points and also won his first World Championship all-around title. In the next few years, including the Paris Olympics, the showdown between Zhang Boheng and Daiki Hashimoto will still be the biggest attraction of the men's all-around competition.
Zhang Boheng won the silver medal in the all-around, and he was the only athlete in the competition to break 14 points in all individual events: floor exercise 14.033 points, pommel horse 14.233 points, rings 14.100 points, vault 14.900 points, parallel bars 15.066 points, horizontal bar 14.433 points.
Although he failed to defend his title in the all-around event, Zhang Boheng still showed all-round strength. In addition, Zhang Boheng withstood the test as the only player in the team event to play the full six events. After two years of baptism at the World Championships, Zhang Boheng proved with strength that he is gradually growing into a core of the men's team.
In the all-around event, Zhang Boheng's strong opponent is not only Daiki Hashimoto, but also Tanigawa Hang, who is also from Japan and won the third place in this World Championship. Filipino star Carlos Yulo and the newly rising Brody Malone of the United States are also high-level challengers.
Individual flocks chase deer and fall to each household
From the competition of individual events at this World Championships, it is not difficult to see that the pattern of the world gymnastics group chasing the stag is taking shape, and on the first day of the individual competition, a total of 10 countries have won medals, and 4 individual events are new champions. The world's top athletes still maintain a high level, such as Daiki Hashimoto, Carlos Yulo and others, and at the same time, after the Tokyo Olympics, many new talents have emerged in the gymnastics teams of various countries, such as Malone of the United States team, Asir of Turkey, etc., and athletes from non-gymnastics traditional powers such as Ireland and Armenia have also begun to reach the podium.
The Chinese team won gold medals in the rings and parallel bars at the Tokyo Olympics, and still maintained its dominant position in both events at the World Championships, winning one gold and one silver. In the parallel bars event, China's Zou Jingyuan won the World Championships for the third time, showing his absolute strength in this individual event. Parallel bars are Zou Jingyuan's strong point, winning the gold medal in his first World Championships in 2017 and defending his title at the 2018 World Championships, where he was also the champion of the Tokyo Olympics, making Zou Jingyuan the undisputed parallel bars king in the world gymnastics arena. In this World Championships, Zou Jingyuan won the first place in the parallel bars qualification round, becoming the only Chinese player to advance to the final. In the final, Zou Jingyuan perfectly completed a set of moves with a difficulty score of 6.9 points, and finally scored 16.166 points, winning the championship with an absolute advantage of 0.666 points, and he was also the only athlete in the parallel bars event to score more than 16 points at this Gymnastics World Championships.
In the ring event, the Chinese team You Hao and Zou Jingyuan advanced to the final, but unfortunately they all made different degrees of mistakes in the next method, and in the end, Zou Jingyuan won the silver medal by a narrow margin of less than 0.1, but he won the ring action named after himself. Olympic runner-up You Hao finished fourth. In time, if the Chinese team can pay attention to the stability of the lower method in this event, coupled with the Olympic champion Liu Yang still in training, the Chinese team is expected to maintain the advantage in the rings.
The ring champion at this World Championship is 23-year-old Turkey's Asir. The young man came to Turkey from Egypt in 2017 and, after five years of hard training, finally reached the top of the World Championship ring competition with 14.933 points, which is also Turkey's second World Championship ring gold medal after Ibram Kolac won gold in 2019. Britain's Courtney Talloch won bronze, his first World Championship medal, up from finishing eighth a year ago.
In the men's horizontal bar event, the Chinese team also had two players advance to the final, but Sun Wei and Zhang Boheng, who were injured, did not play well in the final, and finally ranked fourth and fifth respectively. The gold medal was won by the American Ma Long by 0.1 points, the first time a U.S. male player has won the title in the event since 1979. Daiki Hashimoto won the silver medal and Brazil's Arthur Mariano won the bronze medal.
In the remaining three events, the Chinese team did not show competitiveness, in the floor exercise event, Zhang Boheng gave up the final chance due to a foot injury, and Britain's Giarney Regini-Moran won the championship. Japan's Daiki Hashimoto and Reisuke Doi finished second and third respectively. In the two individual events of vault and pommel horse, the Chinese team was relatively behind, and no team members qualified for the final. Armenia's Artur Daft Yang won gold on vault with an average of 15.050 points in 2 jumps. In the pommel horse final, the 23-year-old McLeanagan made half a lap when dismounted to increase the difficulty, and finally won the championship with a score of 15.300, becoming Ireland's first gymnastics world champion!
Six gold medals belong to six countries, men's gymnastics single competitors are increasing, and strength has been greatly improved, the Chinese team needs to continue to consolidate its strengths and make up for shortcomings in the Paris Olympic cycle, and there is a long way to go.
Du Jie, reporter of China Sports Daily
Source: China Sports Daily
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