Qatar's Mosa Ahmed celebrates after performing at Aspire Dome yesterday.
DOHA: World champion Xiao Ruoteng made a strong comeback while Japanese superstar Kohei Uchimura endured another disappointing day in Doha as the final qualification rounds of the FIG Artistic Individual World Cup concluded yesterday.
As many as 10 gold medals will be up for grabs during two-day finals beginning today at the Aspire Dome.
It was another bad day for three-time Olympics gold medallist Uchimura as he failed to qualify for any of the four finals he competed for.
Returning from an injury he suffered six months ago in Montreal, Uchimura, also famous as ‘King Kohei’, failed to qualify for pommel horse and rings finals on the first day.
Although he showed some confidence in vault and horizontal bars qualifying rounds yesterday, his performance was not enough to give him a place among top eight athletes who advanced to the finals.
In his second attempt in vault, the 29-year-old managed to get 13.600 points which gave him just the 9th spot. In horizontal bars, he finished on 10th spot after a tally of 13.433 points.
“It’s disappointing, as I wanted to qualify for the finals,” said Uchimura.
“As I said before this was not hundred percent from me. I was not fully fit. I just wanted to return to action after injury but my leg was paining. I didn’t want to push it hard.”
“I will check all the footages of my performances when I get back to Japan. I need to work on my weaknesses. Training was excellent, but I wasn’t in the best of my mood. But, I am hopeful that I will regain my form soon,” the Japanese star added.
In contrast, Uchimura’s Chinese rival Ruoteng made a strong comeback after failing on the horse on first day, storming into the finals of parallel bars and horizontal bars following an impressive performance. The world champion won the qualification round for horizontal bars after a flawless show that lent him 14.833 points, ahead of Frenchman Edgar Boulet (14.533 points) and compatriot Shudi Deng (14.500).
Qatar’s rising gymnast Mosa Ahmed also impressed with his skills in horizontal bars.
Ruoteng stood second in parallel bars with 15.133 points behind another compatriot Jingyuan Zou who won the qualifying round with 16.266 points. Romania’s Andrei Vasile took third spot.
The vault qualifying round saw Ukraine’s Igor Radivilov dominating his opponents for a first place with Mingqi Huang and Ruiyang Qu occupying the next two spots respectively.
Britain’s James Taeja topped in women’s floor exercise while de Jesus dos Santos of France won the qualifying round of balance beam.
Today, the finals of men’s floor exercise, pommel horse and rings will be held while women’s will compete for top honours in vault and uneven bars.
Meanwhile, the Secretary-General of the Kazakh Federation of Gymnastics, Igor Dikenbayeva, hailed the Qatar Gymnastics Federation for hosting the World Cup in a befitting manner.
“This is the 10th time for me and I see improvement every year,” she said.
“The arrangement are great and world class facilities at Aspire deserve praise. Qatar will also be hosting the World Championships this year and I am confident they will do it successfully,” she added.
