Asian Games: Event Finals Day 1

China continued their success at the Asian Games today, taking the gold in both vault and uneven bars. Huang Qiushuang won the gold with two clean vaults. Japan’s Rie Tanaka, the all around bronze medalist, took silver despite having lower difficulty than bronze medalist Momoko Ozawa, who had a low landing on her double twisting yurchenko. South Korea’s Jo Hyun Joo who I predicted as the one who could prevent the Chinese women from sweeping the golds fell on her double twisting yurchenko and had it downgraded to finish fourth. Watch partial coverage of the vault finals here.

He Kexin and Huang Qiushuang recovered well after both missing bars at worlds to finish first and second. They clearly dominated the final with the highest difficulty and execution scores out of all the competitors. Koko Tsurumi somewhat made up for her poor showing at both this competition and the world championships by winning the bronze. Daria Elizarova was fourth for the second time in the individual finals. Uzbekistan’s Luiza Galiulina who qualified 7th pulled out of the final, probably to get rest for beam finals tomorrow where she has a very good shot at a bronze medal (or higher if the Chinese miss). Watch the bars final here.