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There wasn’t any slender of a doubt that who was the star on the concluding day of the 7th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Challenge Cup 2014. |
Every time Larisa Iordache stepped on to the floor or her name was announced the crowd erupted in joy, with the small Romanian contingent making the loudest of noise at a packed, raucous Aspire Dome arena, yesterday. At 17, Iordache is already holder of an Olympic Bronze medal, which she won in the team All-round event at 2012 London Games. And it comes as no surprise that she has built on that success.
After having won the Vault gold on Thursday, Iordache made it a hat-trick as she comprehensively won the Beam and Floor Exercise events too. The short lass had topped the qualification in both the events and she once again put a dazzling display to walk away with the gold medals.
In her pet Beam event, Iordache showed some breathtaking skills, with her landing coming along immaculate on the day as she aggregated 14.850 points, 6.300 for Difficulty and an impressive 8.550 for Execution. It still wasn’t her best performance in the event, as she had tallied 15.000 in the qualification. Australian Mary-Anne Monckton finished second (14.700), while the third place went to Vietnam’s Thi Ha Thanh Phan (13.875).
Later in the Floor Exercise, Iordache was once again in her elements. She displayed splendid moves to aggregate 14.425 points, just .125 ahead of her compatriot and close friend Laura Bulimar. The bronze medal was grabbed by Canadian Isabella Onyshko (13.735). Australia’s Lauren Mitchell, 2010 World Champion, who was competing for the first time since 2012 London Games, finished fourth.
Iordache was delighted that she won three events. In the last year’s championship in Doha, Iordache had won gold in Beam and silver in Floor Exercise and Vault. “This has been an amazing week for me. To win three events out of four is something that I did not dream of. This is my first event of the season and this performance will give me a lot of confidence for rest of the year,” Iordache said.
She was also very keen to return to Doha. “I got overwhelming support from the crowd. It’s such a pleasure to come here, the facilities are great so is the atmosphere,” she added.
In the men’s section, Olympic and world champion Epke Zonderland of the Netherlands won the Horizontal Bar, but had to settle for joint first place in the Parallel Bars with Germany’s Marcel Nguyen.
Zonderland and Nguyen both tallied 14.450 points, but the German had a better Difficulty score of 6.800 to Dutch’s 6.600. In the Execution, Zonderland scored 8.850 to Nguyen’s 8.650. Mitja Petkovsek, the two-time World Champion from Slovenia, took home the bronze with a total score of 15.175.
Romania’s Marius Daniel Berbecar, who had topped the qualification stage, faltered in the final as he fumbled while doing a fine swing and finished seventh.
Zonderland, however, was in a class of his own in the Horizontal Bar. The 27-year-old, nicknamed ‘the Flying Dutchman’, had won the Olympic gold in London two years ago with a score of 16.533 and followed it with a World Championships title in Antwerp last year.
While he was not anywhere close to his Olympic performance, his 15.750 performance in the night was enough for him to take gold. USA’s Paul Ruggeri got silver with 15.350 points, while Dzmitry Barkalau (15.200) took bronze.
In opening final of the last day, Armenia’s Artur Davtyan grabbed the Vault gold medal after tallying 15.262 points in two jumps. Japanese Yasuke Saito (15.237) and Kenzo Shirai (15.200) took the silver and bronze medal respectively.