China add medals in parallel bars, balance beam and horizontal bar at FIG worlds

ANTWERP, Belgium, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- China's gymnasts claimed silver medals on the parallel bars and balance beam, and a bronze on the horizontal bar in Antwerp on Sunday at the 52nd FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships.

American star Simone Biles scored the highest 14.800 points to win her fourth balance beam world championships title, 0.1 ahead of China's 18-year-old Zhou Yaqin, who matched Biles's 6.5 difficulty. Zhou's 14.700 is the closest anyone has come to Biles in a world final that the American has won since 2014.

Like Biles, Rebeca Andrade of Brazil leaves Antwerp with five medals, two of which were won Sunday. She finished third in balance beam with 14.300.

Biles dominated the floor exercise with her sixth world titles. Andrade snared the silver and her teammate Flavia Saraiva took her first individual Worlds medal with bronze.

Germany's 30-year-old Lukas Dauser won the parallel bars gold in his fifth World Championships. As Tokyo Olympics silver medalist in parallel bars, Dauser nailed his exercise for 15.400, ahead of China's Shi Cong, who upgraded his bronze medal from the 2021 Worlds with 15.066. Tournament debutant Sugimoto Kaito of Japan was 0.066 behind with the bronze.

"I am quite happy about my performance. I think I have shown all of my abilities. This result is the best I can do for now," said Shi. "I think I have improved quite a lot over the past two years. But I know that I need to work much harder in order to get gold in the future."

Tokyo Olympic champion Daiki Hashimoto of Japan captured his third world title on the horizontal bar to go with the team and all-around golds he had won earlier this week. Hashimoto achieved 15.233, followed by Tin Srbic of Croatia and China's Su Weide, who had fallen off the bar twice in the team event.

"To be honest, I didn't expect to win a medal here. In the team final, I had two falls. All I wanted to do today is to perform my routine successfully. I am very happy that I did it and I went through that psychological barrier," said Su.

"I know that my difficulty is not up there yet. I have to work hard on adding difficulty and trying my best to make it perfect," said the 23-year-old.

China's gymnasts collected a total of two gold, three silver and two bronze medals at the World Championships in Antwerp.