For the second day running a South Korean played party-pooper at the Asian Games gymnastics on Wednesday, as a stunning display by the teenage “God of Vault” stopped a Chinese clean sweep.
On the final day of action at a sell-out Asian Games Town Gymnasium, a formidable China team packed with world and Olympic champions finished just as it started — by winning almost everything in sight.
Yet the Chinese were not at their brilliant best on the night, with several uncharacteristic slips demonstrating they are fallible, even on home ground.
And even at their best they might have had trouble stopping Yang Hak-Seon from catapulting his way to gold on the vault with a highly impressive 16.400 points, well ahead of China's Feng Zhe, who earned silver with 15.850.
Kazakhstan's Stanislav Valiyev won the bronze.
God of Vault
Nicknamed “God of Vault”, the 17-year-old Yang was the youngest gymnast in the men's apparatus final and followed the exploits on Tuesday of compatriot Kim Soo-Myun, who shared gold in the men's floor.
Then China took over, winning the rest of the four gold medals up for grabs.
First, Sui Lu and Deng Linlin took gold and silver respectively in the women's balance beam, and then Feng went one better than he had on the vault, winning the men's parallel bars. Sui, who began training to be a gymnast at the age of three, was at it again in the floor exercise, leaping, springing and flipping to another gold.
It was her fourth of the Games.
World champion Zhang Chenglong finished the procession of Chinese titles by winning the horizontal bar in style with an insurmountable 16.225 points.
Japan's Shun Kuwahara swung his way to silver with 15.725 points.
In stark contrast to China's prowess, Uzbekistan's Darya Elizarova had a torrid time.
Her evening got off to a bad start when the stadium announcer failed to read out her name when the gymnasts were presented to the crowd, and only got worse after that.
She had a tricky time on the balance beam, finishing last out of eight and fighting to keep back the tears, then landed awkwardly in the next event, the floor, badly stubbing her toes. She sat despondently, hunched in a ball, next to the floor apparatus afterwards, until her coach came to console her.
