Learning from past mistakes, Zhang helps China to gold

Five years ago, Zhang Boheng won his first world all-around title in Japan.

On his return, he again found himself atop the podium, this time as the Asian Games men's all-around champion.

Same country. Different Zhang.

Zhang defended his Asian Games title at Nagoya General Gymnasium last week with 85.065 points, edging home favorite and Paris Olympic champion Shinnosuke Oka by 0.367 points. Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion Daiki Hashimoto took bronze.

The victory came two years after Zhang finished second to Oka in the individual all-around at the Paris Olympics. But Zhang said he no longer views that result simply as a disappointment.

"Looking back now, I can't call it regret," he said.

"It was just a part of my gymnastics career. I learned a lot from the Olympics, experienced a lot, and used it to improve my weaknesses."

That experience also shaped the way he approached the competition in Nagoya, where managing risk became as important as delivering on the difficulty.

In Nagoya, Zhang had to put those lessons into practice while dealing with an arm injury. During the all-around final, the injury affected his movements, particularly on the pommel horse, while Oka and Hashimoto kept the pressure on throughout the competition.

"The two Japanese gymnasts are very strong, and they performed very well," Zhang said. "On top of that, I have some injury problems, so the pressure came from every direction."

The decisive moment came on the final apparatus, the horizontal bar.

Zhang was the last gymnast to compete, so his coaches were able to calculate the score required for gold.

"Because their last routines were not quite perfect, I could bring the difficulty down and reduce the risk," Zhang said.

The choice reflected the change Zhang said he had made over the past two years. "I have grown up," he explained. "I feel I have more patience and I am more careful."

Despite the injury, Zhang completed all six apparatus in the team final on Wednesday.

"Considering his injury, we wanted to be more conservative, but he strongly wanted to compete because he wanted to help the team win the title," said Teng Haibin, China's men's team coach.

"Beating the Japanese athletes on their home soil has given us a lot of confidence, and we will try to maintain this good momentum," Teng said.

"I am a person who puts the team first," Zhang said. "As long as I see even a small chance of winning, I will fight to seize it."

The episode also demonstrated another change in Zhang's approach. When teammate Sun Wei made a mistake on the horizontal bar, Zhang rushed to reassure him, reminding him that China still held the lead.

The Chinese team was also prepared for unexpected mistakes after what happened in Paris.

"Learning from that, we strengthened our stability on the horizontal bar in training and made preparations for different situations," Zhang said.

Even as he competes against Oka and Hashimoto, Zhang continues to study them rather than simply measure himself against them.

"World gymnastics does not represent one country or one person. It represents the whole of the sport," he said. "The two Japanese gymnasts give me a lot of strength and motivation."

He watches their routines and also follows gymnasts from Europe and South Korea, studying details that could inform his own training. Hashimoto's performances, in particular, caught his attention during the team final.

Zhang also said that his resolve hadn't faltered after Paris.

"I never lost confidence. I have just been pushing against myself, because world gymnastics keeps improving," he said. "When I return to training, I need to build up more difficulty in reserve and improve my competition mentality."

The Asian Games, however, are only one stop in a packed season. The world championships are just weeks away, and Zhang said his immediate priority is to recover from his injury.

Five years on from his first world title he returned to Japan not simply as a more decorated gymnast, but as a more patient one — one who has learned to calculate risk, manage setbacks and put the team ahead of himself.

All of that will be crucial as he heads to the worlds.

"My injury diagnosis is not as optimistic as people might hope, but it is not that pessimistic either," he said. "I need to rest, receive treatment and adjust my body."