Gymnastics - Que bounces to gold for China

Que Zhicheng won the first ever men's individual trampoline final in Asian Games history at ASPIRE to give China a clean sweep of the gold medals following Huang Shanshan's success in the women's event earlier on Tuesday 12 December.

The 21 year-old had qualified second for the final behind his compatriot Lu Chunlong, but had the highest difficulty of routine at 16.7 in comparison to Lu's 15.7 and it was this that ultimately proved decisive.

Que began his routine with a clean triple pick with a half turn out, but appeared to lose direction as he continued. However using all his experience, Que centred himself and finished strongly after several triple elements.

Awarded a score of 39.50 for his execution, this put the pressure on Lu who was the last of the six gymnasts, which included World No 1 Yasuhiro Ueyama of Japan, in the final to perform.

Lu impressed the judges with his powerful bounce and was dynamic throughout his routine, which included a clean double pike one-and-a-half to an immediate triple twist and earned him an execution score of 23.40.

This was higher than the score World No 5 Que received, but he still took the gold medal with his difficulty being 1.0 better than Lu, giving them overall scores of 39.50 and 39.10 respectively.

"It is somewhat out of my expectations. I didn't perform very well today but the Japanese gymnasts [Yasuhiro Ueyama and Shunsuke Nagasaki] were not in their best condition," Que admitted afterwards.

Lu added: "Normally I would rank in the third place of all the gymnasts that are here today. Yasuhiro Ueyama is the top one of the world and my teammate Que [Zhicheng] is also a very good gymnast. So I am very happy with the result.

"He [Ueyama] has dominated almost the whole year, but he seems to be a little tired at the end of this year. Meanwhile, we have done very well in the Asian Games because we won the Games [in trampoline]."

Ueyama had been expected to dominate at Doha 2006 after winning the World Cup final in Birmingham last month, but he placed a disappointing fourth in qualification and would go on to finish in the same spot in the final.

This is because while Ueyama filled his routine with several triple skills, including a triple twisting somersault finish, he couldn't match the skill and execution of the Chinese gymnasts and scored only 38.40.

Instead it was Ueyama's fellow Japanese Shunsuke Nagasaki who took the bronze medal. Nagasaki carried an injury into the competition, but his better execution gave him a score of 38.80.

Faraj Al Hamad of Qatar - at 15 years old the youngest in the competition - showed some promising technique during his routine with a 9.1 degree of difficulty to finish fifth with a score of 33.40, more than double that of Kuwaiti newcomer Saleh Alkhadheir.

15th Asian Games, Doha 2006