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Lu Bin Wins China's First Gold on Day 2 of Goodwill Games
Lu Bin Wins China's First Gold on Day 2 of Goodwill Games
Lu Bin won China's first gold medal in the men's vault at the 2001 Goodwill Games in Brisbane, Australia, on Thursday night with an overall score of 9.556 points.
Despite being a relative newcomer to international gymnastics competitions, Lu was the only gymnast in the event to make a perfect landing, from a vault with a high difficulty rating.
Lu scored 9.27 points in his first vault and 9.837 in his second.
Sydney Olympic bronze medalist Leszek Blanik of Poland won the silver medal with a score of 9.525.
Blanik's first vault scored 9.725, one of the highest scoring of the competition, but he was unable to back it up with his second.
Romania's Marian Marian Dragelescu won the bronze medal with a score of 9.387.
Ring specialist Szilvester Csollany of Hungary won gold in the men's rings, the first event in gymnastics competition on Thursday.
Sheer strength and control saw Csollany, the Olympic champion, take the gold medal with a score of 9.775.
Reigning world, Olympic and European uneven bars champion, Russian Svetlana Khorkina, reaffirmed her number one position, winning gold Thursday night with a score of 9.712.
In the rhythmic gymnastics all-around competition Thursday night, Russian Irina Chashchina, with a score of 113.550 points, beat teammate and world champion Alina Kabaeva to take a gold.
In beach volleyball, all the top seeds advanced to the quarterfinals at the end of play on Thursday.
In the men's division, the first seven seeds made it through, while in the women's the top eight made to the last eight.
China's women beach volleyball duo Chi Rong and Xiong Zi beat Vassiliki Karadassiou and Efrosyni Sfyri of Greece 21-19, 21-19.
In a tight match, the Greek team matched the seventh seeds Chi and Xiong point for point for most of the two sets, but the Chinese team proved to be the stronger one.
Women's world champions and number two seeds Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede had no problems in winning 21-11, 21-14 over their Australian opponents, Angela Clarke and kylie Gerlic.
In the men's group, only Austrians, Nikolas Berger and Oliver Stamm managed to get through when not seeded in the top eight.
Australians Julien Prosser and Lee Aahner, seeded third, were impressive in their 21-13, 21-15 win over the Swedes Bjorn Berg and Simon Dahl.
Sydney 2000 Olympic gold medalist Eric Fonoimoana and his new partner Rob Heidger had to struggle to defeat the Swiss pair of Stefan Kobel and Patrick Heuscher 25-23, 22-20.
World junior champion Cheryl Haworth of the United States Thursday night easily won the gold in all three categories at the women's over 75kg weightlifting competition.
Haworth, the youngest competitor in the class, won the snatch, clean and jerk and overall gold, breaking the U.S. records in the snatch and clean and jerk, lifting 127.5 kg in the snatch and 155 kg in the clean and jerk, finishing with 282.5kg overall.
Also on Thursday night, the consistent swimming of the Australian women produced a close, but well-earned 10 point victory, over the Americans. Australia scored 79.5 to the United States' 69.5.
The European All-Stars women scored their first match win Thursday night in convincing fashion against the World All-Stars swimming team, with the final points score 107 to 42.
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