With the Asian Games less than a month away, Taiwan head gymnastics coach Sadao Hamada is hoping for a gold medal in the men’s pommel horse and a medal in the men’s team event, assistant coach Lin Yu-shin said yesterday.
Gymnast Lee Chih-kai, who competed in the pommel horse event at the 2016 Olympics and won gold on the apparatus at last year’s Taipei Summer Universiade, should win the pommel horse gold medal at the Jakarta games if nothing goes wrong, Lin said.
As for the men’s team event, “coach Hamada hopes we can squeeze into the top three and help Taiwan’s gymnastics team make history by winning a team medal,” Lin said.
That is to be a tall order, considering that Japan and China took the gold and bronze, and South Korea finished 11th in the team event at the 2016 Olympics.
One factor that could affect how the team does is a rule change being instituted for the final round of the team competition, Lin said.
At the last Asian Games in 2014, five gymnasts from each team performed a routine on each apparatus in the team final, but only the top four scores were counted.
However, these Asian Games are to adopt the Olympic format, in which only three gymnasts per team compete on each apparatus in the team final and all of their scores count.
That would leave little margin for error and might lead to changes in strategy, such as lowering the degree of difficulty for a routine if a gymnast on another team commits a big mistake, Lin said.
Taiwan’s hopes in the individual events clearly lie with Lee, but he was just as focused on the team event, saying that everyone is working hard and hoping that Taiwan could finally win a team medal.
“I just hope I’m not the one who holds the team back,” he said.
Asked if Lee would perform any tricks in his routine, Lin smiled and said: “It’s a secret.”
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