Chinese world champion Yang Wei beat Japanese duo Hisashi Mizutori and
Hiroyuki Tomita to lift gymnastics men's all-around title at the Doha Asian
Games here on Monday.
Yang Wei scored 95.500 points against 93.400 points by
Hisashi Mizutori and Yang's arch rival Hiroyuki Tomita followed in third with
93.250.
Yang Wei and Hiroyuki Tomita finished first and second in all-around at the
Aarhus world championships on October in Denmark. Yang won his first individual
world title in Aarhus in all-round.
In today's all-round duel, Yang Wei came forward over Tomita after the third
rotation of rings by grabbing 16.550 points in the apparatus and never
surrendered his lead from then on.
Yang even outperformed his teammate Chen Yibing, the rings world champion at
Aarhus, on Chen's specialty, who recorded a mark of 16.500.
After three rotations, Yang, Tomita and Chen ranked the top three positions
in scores of 47.200, 46.700 and 46.500. Yang just consolidated his margin by
vaulting 16.600 points in the fourth rotation. Tomita's costly vault error for
landing on his rear forfeited his chance of pressing hard on Yang, taking in
just 15.450 points.
China's Chen came up with 16.300 to push Tomita to the third place by taking
the advantage of Tomita's mistake with only parallel bars and high bar left.
Yang geared up to further extend his lead by scoring 16.300 points, highest
on parallel bars, while error-prone Tomita staggered on landing and had to
settle with a tied third place with his teammate Hisashi Mizutori before the
last high bar competition.
Yang went into the high bar with a edge of 2.450 points over Tomita and
Mizutori and a low difficulty routine is enough to ensure the all-around the
gold. Mizutori collected best 15.750 points in high bar and finished second in
total, while Yang showcased a fluent moves and earned 15.400 points to defend
his all-around title at Asiad.
"I realized the gold came to me when I landed on the cushion from the high
bar. I am relaxed mentally, but I can feel the fatigue physically after the
event," said Yang Wei.
"I think Tomita is my arch rival until I retire after 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The victory brings me a lot of confidence for my future career.
"I respect Tomita a lot and I think he is a very persistent gymnast.
"I will try to become the most prolific athlete at the Doha Asian Games and
try to win two more gold medals in the apparatus competitions."
Tomita spilt positive appraisal for Yang. "He is a very powerful competitor
for me. He can perform his skill out with high stability."
"He can consistently increase his routines both in accuracy and difficulty,
and he is a very overwhelming gymnast in the world," said Tomita.