Yahoo News World Gymnastics Championships 2019: Great Britain’s Joe Fraser claims gold medal in parallel bars
Joe Fraser claimed Great Britain’s second gold medal at the World Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart with victory in the men’s parallel bars final.
The 20-year-old from Birmingham nailed his routine to score 15.0 then watched as a series of rivals failed to live up to his total.
Turkey’s Onder Ahmet took the silver medal with a score of 14.983 ahead of Japan’s Kaya Kazuma, who won bronze with 14.966.
Fraser’s success took Britain’s total medal tally at the Championships to four after pommel gold for Max Whitlock on Saturday, as well as silver and bronze for sisters Becky and Ellie Downie on bars and vault respectively.
Fraser said: “It is unbelievable to be world champion. I have worked really hard on the parallel bars and I had hoped for a medal, but gold is crazy.”
Fraser, who had not previously won an individual apparatus medal at a major championship, also became Britain’s first major medallist in the discipline.
British Gymnastics performance director James Thomas said: “We’ve had an outstanding World Championships and seen really encouraging performances across the board which ahead of Olympic year is exactly what we wanted to achieve.”
Meanwhile two more gold medals for Simone Biles made the American the most decorated athlete in World Gymnastics Championships history.
Biles took gold on both beam and floor to take her career total to 25 world medals, in the process surpassing the previous record held by Vitaly Scherbo.
Biles scored 15.066 to win her fourth gold of the 2019 Championships on beam, then repeated the feat to beat 16-year-old compatriot Sunisa Lee and take floor gold with a score of 15.133.
PA
