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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UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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