Asian Games: All Around

The Medalists (Photo: Getty Images)

I sense a pattern emerging. Huang Qiushuang lost yet another all around medal that could have easily been hers. In Rotterdam it was the bronze, now it’s the gold. Another pattern is hitting bars in prelims and screwing up in finals, a pattern that she could end tomorrow. Her teammate, Sui Lu, took advantage of her fall on uneven bars to take the title, her first major international all around victory after her consistency won her two national titles this year. Rie Tanaka of Japan, the winner of the Longines Prize for Elegance at Worlds, won the bronze medal despite a very shaky beam set, finishing .35 over Uzbekistan’s Daria Elizarova, whose vault score put her behind from the beginning. Her teammate Luiza Galiulina finished 5th ahead of Japan’s Kyoko Oshima. It is interesting to note that while South Korea pulled out their top qualifier and replaced her with another gymnast, neither China nor Japan opted to put Jiang Yuyuan or Koko Tsurumi into the final.

You can view the all around here.