Doha (Qatar), AGU Office: China’s triple World and double Olympic champion Dong Dong and compatriot Zhu Xueying warmed up for the next month’s Trampoline World Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria, by winning the men’s and women’s individual competitions respectively at the last World Cup event of the series in Valladolid, Spain, last weekend.
It was an outstanding performance by Dong, who defeated reigning Olympic champion Uladzislau Hancharou of Belarus and 2014 world champion Tu Xiao of China.
Dong, who finished second at the Rio Games last year, also overcame 2014 Youth Olympic champion Dylan Schmidt of New Zealand and three-time Olympian Dmitrii Ushakov of Russia.
The Chinese enjoyed a higher horizontal displacement value and took advantage of Schmidt’s four penalty to push him behind. Had the New Zealander not committed the error in difficulty, execution and time-of-flight scores, he would have edged Dong by .005 points.
Meanwhile, Zhu, who was competing in her first World Cup after two years, claimed her maiden title.
The 19-year-old returned to Valladolid to top execution and horizontal displacement scores which helped her to surpass Russia’s world-ranking leader Yana Pavlova and three-time Olympian Tatsiana Piatrenia of Belarus in the final, where the reigning Olympic champion Rosannagh MacLennan of Canada failed to qualify.
However, the Asian women had a setback in the synchronised event, where Zhu Xueying and Zhu Shouli were beaten by France’s Piatrenia and Maryia Makharynskaya for bronze.
But Japan’s men team of Daiki Kishi and Ryosuke Sakai finished behind winners Nathan Bailey and Luke Strong of the Great Britain in synchronised competition.
In the women’s tumbling, the Chinese multi-World Championships medallist Chen Li came third.