Chusovitina defies age to win vault gold

Doha: Uzbekistan's Oksana Chusovitina once again defied her age to reign supreme in the women's vault competition, winning with 14.433 points at the 11th FIG Artistic Individual Apparatus World Cup here at the Aspire Dome on Friday..

The 42-year-old and seven-time Olympian, who is preparing for 2020 Tokyo Games, took her performance a notch above in the final with a superb landing, which fetched her .150 points more from her qualification score.

People’s Republic of Korea’s Yong Rye Pyon, whose qualification score was 14.166, also improved her performance to take silver (14.383).

In uneven bars, Belgium’s Nina Derwael (15.300), bronze medallist at the 2017 World Championships in Montreal, Canada, finished ahead of Uliana Perebinosova (Russia, 14.566) and Melanie de Jesus dos Santos (France, 14.400).

Meanwhile, in the men's competitions, Zou Jingyuan picked up the first gold for China when he pipped Chinese Taipei’s Lee Chih Kai with an impressive 15.100 points in pommel horse.

Lee, who topped the qualifiers, had to be content with a silver (14.800) while USA’s Alec Yoder finished just .100 points behind for the bronze.

But Carlos Edrie Yulo of the Philippines uncorked the biggest surprise by finishing second (14.433) in the floor after his sixth-place in the qualifiers on Wednesday.

The apparatus was won by Russia’s Dmitri Lankin (14.733), who had finished second in the qualifiers.

Japan’s Ryohei Kato claimed bronze (14.200) for his country’s first medal in the competition.

Takumi Sato (Japan), who had topped in the qualifiers, couldn’t quite do much as he had to be content with a fourth-place.

Igor Radivilov, who is a vault specialist, bagged the men's rings gold with 15.266 followed by Turkey’s Ibrahim Colak (15.000) and China’s Zou Jingyuan (14.966).

France’s Coline Devillard (13.949), who advanced to the finals as the seventh best, should be lauded for her bronze-medal effort.