Today's men's trampoline final concluded the trampoline competition of the 11th Asian Junior Championships in gymnastics.  It was the first time that trampoline was featured at a gymnastics Asian Junior Championship.  The event took place at the Event Hall of the Makuhari Messe complex in Chiba, Japan, near Tokyo. 

Besides the gold medal, the main reward from the competition was a qualification for the top two Asian trampolinists for the 1st Youth Olympic Games to be held in Singapore on August 14-26, 2010.  A maximum of one male and one female trampolinist is allowed per country.  In addition to the two Asian trampolinists qualified based on the results of these Asian Junior Championships, one spot at the Youth Olympic Games will be reserved for Singapore, the host country.  The event was opened to trampolinists born in 1993 or 1994.

Today's men's trampoline final was dominated by the Chinese trampolinists once again.  He Yuxiang (CHN) captured the gold medal thanks to a superb routine that scored 39.80 pts.  Competing second from last in the final, the trampolinist from Guangxi chose to rely on the execution rather than high difficulty as he competed a 13.70 pt tariff, which nonetheless kicked off with a half out triffis tuck and concluded with a miller straight.  He Yuxiang, who won the Australian Youth Olympic Festival last year, delivered an optional with height maintained throughout, outstanding body positions and very limited traveling.  The silver medal of these 2010 Asian Junior Championships went to Chen Haopeng (CHN - pictured right), who was competing last in the final after dominating the preliminaries.  Cheng Haopeng competed a high quality routine that yielded a score of 39.00 pts.  Cheng's routine relied on good height, nice execution and high difficulty (14.50 pt tariff kicking off with a half out triffis tuck and concluding with a miller straight).  Unfortunately, Cheng Haopeng lost precious tenths on two significant travelings (skills 2 and 4).

Ginga  Munetomo (JPN - pictured left) claimed the bronze medal in this final thanks to a very solid routine.  Munetomo's routine earned 37.60 pts thanks to high difficulty (14.50 pt tariff kicking off with a half out triffis tuck).  Munetomo's routine featured limited traveling and good execution, but it was performed notably lower than the routines performed by his Chinese rivals.  2007 World Age Group Competition (WAGC) gold medalist and 2009 WAGC silver medalist Takahiro Kato (JPN), who was competing third to last in the final, had to settle for the 4th place of these Asian Junior Championships.  Kato's routine yielded 36.80 pts.  Kato's routine was pretty good with solid difficulty (14.10 pt tariff kicking off with a rudy out pike).  However, he suffered from a significant traveling on skill 6, from which he recovered, as well as some struggle on skill 10 (miller straight) due to some lack of rotation, which caused him to almost land his final vertical jump on the mat.  In addition, even though his body positions in the air were neat, they could have been slightly better just before landing in the bed.

Akzhol Zamanbekov (KAZ) finished the competition in 5th place with 34.60 pts.  Zamanbekov relied on high difficulty (14.50 pt tariff kicking off with a half out triffis tuck), but his execution was poor, and his routine traveled throughout.  Husanboy Jonibekov (UZB) took the 6th place with 33.60 pts.  Pavel Sitkin (UZB - 3.70 pts) and Abdulla Al-Homadi (QAT - 3.60 pts) took the last two places of the final after both crashing on the mat on their second skill.              

Link to the videos of the event (in the menu in the middle of the page, click on the second box from the top "大会動画ライブラリー")

Link to the official website with the official results

Link to official report with pictures