2024-08-01 21:45:02
There was a change in the leaderboard after four events with Ukraine’s Oleg Verniaiev, the 2016 Olympic all-around silver medallist, and reigning world all-around silver medallist Illia Kovtun using parallel bars scores of a15.000 and 15.400, respectively, to sit one-two.
Oka, who led after three apparatus, dropped to fourth as Xiao sat third after a clean Kasamatsu double-full netted him a 14.833.
Zhang continued to hang near the top in sixth, heading into his two best events.
Oka, 15.100; Xiao, 14.766; and Zhang, 15.300; used brilliant parallel bars routines to take the top three spots, respectively, heading into the final rotation. The trio was separated by less than four tenths of a point.
Zhang had a nervous warm-up, falling to his stomach on a layout Tkatchev in the final warm-up for the horizontal bar.
In competition, Oka delivered a thrilling effort to put the pressure on Zhang who nickeled and dimed his way to a 14.633, just shy of the mark he needed for gold.
Embraced by his teammate Hashimoto, the duo ran to the floor exercise podium to celebrate, swarmed by photographers and cameras.
