Doha (QAT), AGU Office: China dominated on the first day finals at the Trampoline World Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Friday, winning three of the first four titles at stake in men and women trampoline and women’s tumbling.

Following their impressive show at the 2012 Games in London, Dong Dong, Tu Xiao and Gao Lei and Xiao Jinyu stormed into the final as favorites.

But their road to glory wasn’t a walk in the park as they had to overcome stiff challenge from the Russians Dmitrii Ushakov, Sergei Azarian, Andrey Yudin, and Mikhail Melnik.

Ushakov ended up with the best score to put tremendous pressure on Gao, the last competitor. However, the reigning world champion pipped the Russians by a final margin of less than 0.3 points to help China reclaim the world title they had lost to Belarus in 2015. 

Japan (Daiki Kishi, Masaki Ito, Ryosuke Sakai and Ginga Munetomo) completed the podium.

Chinese women also had their share of glory when 2014 champion Liu Lingling and Youth Olympic champion Zhu Xueying, along with Zhong Xingping and Zhu Shouli produced a show of class to defend the title and overall sixth since 2005.

Belarusians Tatsiana Piatrenia, Hanna Harchonak, Maryia Makharynskaya and Anhelina Khatsian collected silver while Great Britain (Laura Gallagher, Isabelle Songhurst and Katherine Driscoll) finished third.

Meanwhile, China made it a four in a row in tumbling thanks to three¬-time world champion Jia Fangfang, who along with Chen Ling, Chen Lingxi and Zhu Shouli outshone Great Britain and France.