Rising stars Yang Lanbin, Wang Chengcheng\u00a0and Zheng Ao led China to its first Artistic Gymnastics Junior World Championships team title in Manila, out-manoeuvering Japan and bronze medallist USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China started slowly on Horizontal Bar but picked up steam as the competition unfolded on the opening day at the Marriott Grand Ballroom in Pasay City. The Chinese trio posted the highest team totals for Floor Exercise, Pommel Horse, Still Rings and Vault to make the gymnastics powerhouse\u2019s first ever team medal at a Junior World Championships gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Early issues on Horizontal Bar forced the Chinese to count a sub-12 point score in the unforgiving three-up three-count format. But Yang, Wang and Zheng Ao diligently hacked away at the deficit with hit performances everywhere else. 13.300 by Yang and 13.100 from Wang on Parallel Bars in the final rotation was enough to pull them ahead by six tenths of a point. China\u2019s winning total was 163.095.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere were a lot of ups and downs, but I\u2019m really happy right now,\u201d said Wang, who led the way with the highest score of the competition on Pommel Horse (14.100) and was the best Chinese performer on Still Rings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe just had the National Games in China a week ago and I got to do that, and now I\u2019ve experienced the World Championships too, which is a big event for our junior teams. I\u2019ve been a little tired from that, but team and country come first.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2023 champions Japan, represented by Ojima Nao, Yasui Eijun\u00a0and Kakutani Taiki, hit 17 of 18 routines to earn silver with 162.429. The young Japanese squad overcame some pre-competition jitters to perform themselves onto the podium, explained team captain Ojima.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe come from different clubs and haven’t done many competitions, so I was a bit nervous,\u201d explained Ojima, a 17-year-old who qualified for Saturday\u2019s All-Around final in third place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut we all practiced and worked together, and I think we played a good match. I was pretty apprehensive during my first routine, but I think I was able to switch gears and do well afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What seemed like a cut-and-dried silver for Japan was complicated by the United States\u2019s Dante Reive, Danila Leykin and Nathan Roman, who displayed moments of brilliance across the six apparatus to finish with bronze just 0.1 behind the Japanese. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clutch performances came from Rieve, the highest scorer on Still Rings (13.933), and the elegant Leykin, who had the best scores of the day on Parallel Bars (14.100) and Horizontal Bar (14.466). The USA\u2019s bronze medal total was 162.239.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTeam USA is on the hunt!\u201d Leykin exclaimed, and Rieve predicted more medals to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The French effort took flight on Horizontal Bar, where twin scores of 14.066 by Nael Sakouhi and Leeroy Traore-Malatre galvanised the team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The French went on to nail tricky sets on Floor Exercise and Pommel Horse for 161.762 and fourth. Great Britain, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands rounded out the top eight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The men\u2019s All-Around qualification was always going to be a good show, and neutral athlete Arsenii Dukhno assumed the starring role. The 17-year-old started by scoring an enormous 14.500 for a Floor Exercise that would have been at home in any\u00a0world final and went on from there, displaying fully mature routines across the six apparatus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even a fall on Parallel Bars and some issues on Horizontal Bar could not keep Dukhno from leading the way in the All-Around with 82.065, 1.3 points ahead of China\u2019s Yang, second with 80.698. Ojima, Leykin and Kakutani were third, fourth, and fifth, with 1.633 separating Dukhno from Kakutani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to Floor, Dukhno qualified first to the apparatus final on Vault, where he tossed a triple-twisting Yurchenko and averaged 14.216. He was also third on Pommel Horse and fourth on Still Rings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Filipino Karl Eldrew Yulo, the younger brother of Olympic champion Carlos Yulo, was the host nation\u2019s top performer, advancing to the Floor Exercise final in second place with 14.233 and also qualifying for finals on Vault, Horizontal Bar and in the All-Around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before the competition Yulo admitted to feeling the weight of expectations that come when your sibling has achieved Olympic greatness, but said his main goal was to take everything he could from the Junior Worlds experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is going to be my first and last [Junior Worlds] and so I’m just going to enjoy this competition,\u201d said Yulo, who spent seven months in Japan this year training to give Thursday\u2019s performance. Going forward, \u201cI will do my best instead of pressuring myself,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rising stars Yang Lanbin, Wang Chengcheng\u00a0and Zheng Ao led China to its first Artistic Gymnastics Junior World Championships<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,264],"tags":[134],"class_list":["post-6306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","category-uncategorized-en","tag-gymnastics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/china-junior-gymnastics.jpg",810,540,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/china-junior-gymnastics-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/china-junior-gymnastics-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/china-junior-gymnastics-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/china-junior-gymnastics.jpg",640,427,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/china-junior-gymnastics.jpg",810,540,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/china-junior-gymnastics.jpg",810,540,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/china-junior-gymnastics.jpg",810,540,false],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/china-junior-gymnastics-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a> Uncategorized<\/a>","tag_info":"Uncategorized","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/china-junior-gymnastics.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6306"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6310,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6306\/revisions\/6310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}