National Games: Olympic silver medallist Xiao Ruoteng clinches gold in men’s all-around
- The 25-year-old Beijing entrant scored an impressive 87.532 to edge past Hunan’s Zhang and Jiangsu’s Sun
- Xiao, who nearly retired in 2016, will eye the men’s individual vault, parallel bars and horizontal bars on Sunday
The 25-year-old Beijing team representative, who won all-around silver and floor exercise and team bronze at the Tokyo Games, scored 87.532 overall (free exercise 14.800, pommel horse 15.066, rings 14.100, vault 14.933, parallel bars 14.900, horizontal bar 13.733) to edge out Zhang Boheng of Hunan (86.465) and Olympic bronze-winning teammate Sun Wei of Jiangsu (86.365).
It was a huge achievement for Xiao despite the roster missing the likes of Olympic parallel bars and rings gold medallists Zou Jingyan and Liu Yang.
The three-time world champion Xiao showed that he still has a lot left in the tank after nearly retiring five years ago. A serious injury had caused him to miss the 2016 Rio Games, but Xiao has had a resurgence since Tokyo.
“My Olympics was really meaningful and full of challenges. I’m pretty satisfied with how I performed, despite not being able to finish first in any of these events. There were regrets because I think my abilities deserved a gold medal,” he told CGTN in the lead-up to the National Games.
