OLYMPICS/Taiwan's Tang Chia-hung wins gold at gymnastics' Doha World Cup

Taipei, April 21 (CNA) Taiwanese gymnast Tang Chia-hung (唐嘉鴻) won a gold medal in the horizontal bar event at the 2024 Doha World Cup Saturday (Doha time), extending a run of dominant performances in the lead-up to this summer's Paris Olympics.

The Doha event was the last of four competitions making up the 2024 FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup series, which serve as qualification events for the summer Olympic Games being held from July 26 through Aug. 11.

Tang, 27, had already won gold medals in horizontal bars at the series' first two stops in Cairo, Egypt and Cottbus, Germany in February, and officially secured an Olympic berth at the third competition in Baku, Azerbaijan last month.

In Saturday's finals at Doha, Tang soared to another first-place finish with a total score of 15.133, based on an execution score of 8.633 on a routine with a difficulty score of 6.5.

He was trailed by Robert Tvorogal of Lithuania, who earned a silver medal with a score of 14.7, and Brazil's Arthur Mariano, who took bronze with a score of 14.533.

Speaking after the competition, Tang's coach Weng Shih-hang (翁士航) told CNA said there was still room for improvement in Tang's execution.

"But now we've had this routine scored by international judges, and that was our goal in these last two competitions," he added.

Looking ahead, Weng said Tang would return to Taiwan to rest and recuperate for the next three weeks, before trying to raise the difficulty level of his routine to 6.8, in order to increase his chances of winning gold at the Olympics.

"We're hoping to practice the more difficult routine at least 60 times," Weng said.

"If [Tang] makes technical errors on even one or two of those attempts, the routine might be too dangerous, and we'll have to assess whether or not it is feasible," Weng said.