Gymnastics-Oka hangs on to win horizontal bar gold at Paris Games
Sign up now: Get the biggest sports news in your inbox
Follow topic:
PARIS - Japan's Shinnosuke Oka won his third gold medal of the Paris Games on Monday with a powerful and precise routine on horizontal bar in a final riddled with mistakes.
Colombian teenager Angel Barajas took silver and Taiwan's Tang Chia-hung and China's Zhang Boheng shared bronze despite botched performances.
Oka, brimming with confidence after he won gold in the team and all-around events as well as a bronze on the parallel bars earlier in the day, stuck his landing for a score of 14.533.
While 17-year-old Barajas equalled his mark, Oka remained ahead of him due to his higher execution score. .
"I didn't really expect to win a gold medal on the horizontal bar," Oka said.
"I didn't make any mistakes today and I am very happy with my routine."
More than half of the field came off the apparatus mid routine or botched their dismount in what was a messy conclusion to the men's artistic gymnastics programme in Paris.
Top qualifier Zhang Boheng produced a flawless routine on the bar featuring a number of gravity-defying release-and-catch manoeuvres but stumbled forwards off the mat following his dismount and touched down with both hands to stop himself falling over.
Taiwan's Tang suffered a crash landing mid routine and finished with the exact same score of 13.966 as Zhang in terms of difficulty and execution.
A new champion was guaranteed in the event after Tokyo gold medallist Daiki Hashimoto of Japan failed to qualify for the final.
Oka, 20, felt any weight on his shoulders had been lifted by his previous triumphs.
"I was just able to perform with less pressure. I'm happy I was able to do so well," he said.
Oka said that out of the three golds he will be taking home from Paris, the team prize holds a special place in his heart. Japan snatched the gold at the 11th hour after two Chinese gymnasts made costly mistakes in the final rotation.
"My favourite one is of course the gold medal in the team final, because that's what we've been working so hard for. It's a collective result." REUTERS
