Taiwanese gymnast Tang Chia-hung (唐嘉鴻) on Sunday clinched a gold medal in the horizontal bar event at the Salamunov Memorial in Maribor, Slovenia, once again tackling a difficulty score of 6.8 for his routine.
Tang’s win extended his run of outstanding performances in the buildup to next month’s Paris Olympics, in which he has already earned a spot.
The Maribor meeting was the 55th edition of the gymnastics competition and one of three European events in which Tang competed ahead of the Olympics.
Photo courtesy of Weng Shih-hang, copied by Lin Yueh-fu, Taipei Times
Tang’s coach, Weng Shih-hang (翁士航), said the primary goal of the training team was to help Tang establish a place as a world-class gymnast to improve his odds in Paris, following his record-breaking performance in Koper, Slovenia, last week, as most of the European judges at his past three competitions would also be working at the Paris Olympics.
Nicknamed Asia’s “King of Cats” as his forte is the Yamawaki, or vertical “cat” jump, Tang got off to a shaky start on the horizontal bar during the preliminaries with a total score of 14.050.
However, in Sunday finals, Tang returned to form, scoring a total of 15.150, based on an execution score of 8.350 on a routine with a difficulty score of 6.8, to win his sixth gold medal of the season.
Since Koper, Tang has been tackling a high difficulty score of 6.8 in his routines, which his coach said was part of his preparations for the Olympics.
“Last year, we started planning to tackle the difficulty level of 6.8,” Weng said last week in Koper.
“These last three stops in Europe were for him to work out the kinks. The world of gymnastics is now very competitive, and staying put [in his comfort zone] won’t bring success,” he said.
After Tang’s win in Slovenia’s second-largest city, Weng applauded his performance, but said the Taiwanese star was showing obvious signs of fatigue after attending three competitions in quick succession.
However, the training team has achieved its goal of helping Tang make an impression, Weng said.
Weng said that Tang would next travel to Switzerland for 10 days of training, which would include getting used to European food and becoming familiar with the equipment that is to be used at the Paris Olympics next month.
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