National Games: Olympic silver medallist Xiao Ruoteng clinches gold in men’s all-around
- The 25-year-old Beijing entrant scored an impressive 87.532 to edge past Hunan’s Zhang and Jiangsu’s Sun
- Xiao, who nearly retired in 2016, will eye the men’s individual vault, parallel bars and horizontal bars on Sunday
The 25-year-old Beijing team representative, who won all-around silver and floor exercise and team bronze at the Tokyo Games, scored 87.532 overall (free exercise 14.800, pommel horse 15.066, rings 14.100, vault 14.933, parallel bars 14.900, horizontal bar 13.733) to edge out Zhang Boheng of Hunan (86.465) and Olympic bronze-winning teammate Sun Wei of Jiangsu (86.365).
It was a huge achievement for Xiao despite the roster missing the likes of Olympic parallel bars and rings gold medallists Zou Jingyan and Liu Yang.
The three-time world champion Xiao showed that he still has a lot left in the tank after nearly retiring five years ago. A serious injury had caused him to miss the 2016 Rio Games, but Xiao has had a resurgence since Tokyo.
“My Olympics was really meaningful and full of challenges. I’m pretty satisfied with how I performed, despite not being able to finish first in any of these events. There were regrets because I think my abilities deserved a gold medal,” he told CGTN in the lead-up to the National Games.
Silver medallist Zhang will look back to his underwhelming vault performance as a major work-on – he would almost certainly have clinched the top spot had he remained above average in that category.
Bronze winner Sun, 26, was part of the 2018 world championship winning team and went into the Games as a medal favourite having performed well in recent all-around World Cups. A long-standing injury since 2019 may have affected his performances on the rings and vault, from which he finished below 14 points.
Xiao and Sun will go for gold in the men’s vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar final on Sunday.
Women’s all-around final on Friday, gold medallist Guan Chenchen, silver medallist Tang Xijing, they go again in the vault and uneven bars final on Saturday. Guan and Tang contend in the balance beam and floor final the next day.
