Gymnast Tang Chia-hung defends Asian horizontal bar title

Taipei, June 21 (CNA) Taiwanese gymnast Tang Chia-hung (唐嘉鴻) successfully defended his horizontal bar title at the 2026 Asian Men's Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Zunyi, China, on Sunday.

The 29-year-old Olympic bronze medalist carded a difficulty score of 6.600, an execution score of 8.900, and a total score of 15.500, defeating China's star gymnast Zhang Boheng (張博恆) and Japan's Fusuke Maeda to retain the Asian Championships gold medal.

Tang performed a highly difficult routine in the final and executed the entire set smoothly and confidently to earn the winning score of 15.500. Zhang lagged behind with a difficulty score of 6.200, an execution score of 8.800, and a total of 15.000 points.

Maeda claimed the bronze medal with a difficulty score of 6.900, an execution score of 7.400, and a total score of 14.300.

The championships in Guizhou Province, which took place from Friday to Sunday, featured the individual all-around competition and apparatus qualification rounds.

Taiwan's men's team -- comprising Tang, Lee Chih-kai (李智凱), Hung Yuan-hsi (洪源禧), Chuang Chia-lung (莊佳龍) and Shiao Yu-jan (蕭佑然) -- combined to score 238.762 points and finish fifth overall.

Olympic medalist Lee won a bronze medal, his first-ever medal at the Asian Championships, on Sunday, followed by Hung, who won Taiwan's second bronze medal in the men's parallel bars on Sunday, scoring 13.800 points with a difficulty score of 5.700 and an execution score of 8.100.

The fifth-place finish also secured the team a berth at the 2026 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, which will be held in the Netherlands this October.

Team coach Lin Yu-hsin (林育信) described the overall performance as "almost perfect," as it secured Taiwan a place in the team competition at the 2026 World Championships.