China’s Zhang beats her Japanese rivals and wins gold in gymnastics at the Asian Games

A “more mature” Zhang Boheng won gold in men’s all-around gymnastics at the Asian Games on Monday, beating his Japanese rivals ahead of next month’s world championships.

China’s Zhang overcame injury to win gold in Nagoya ahead of Paris Olympic champion Shinnosuke Oka and reigning world champion Daiki Hashimoto.

Zhang hopes to repeat the feat at next month’s world championships in Rotterdam and said he has grown as an athlete.

“I kept reviewing my shortcomings,” said Zhang, who finished second to Oka at the Paris Olympic Games and again to Hashimoto at the last world championships.

“It was mainly about adapting the technical elements and letting my mentality become more and more mature.”

Zhang said it was “an intense and very exciting competition.”

“The pressure was very high for me personally too, because before coming here I had a small injury and during the race it had some effect,” said the 26-year-old.

“But what deserves more credit is that I overcame the difficulty.”

Oka came into the competition nursing a back injury that forced him to reduce the difficulty of his routines.

He said his performance was “the level I’m capable of producing at the moment”.

When asked how he got through his routine, he said: “Injections, getting into an oxygen capsule and then dropping the skills that were hurting my back.

“Skills that hurt, and skills that looked like they would hurt, I couldn’t do this time,” he added.

“This time it worked, and I made it without my back getting inflamed.”