South Korea's Yang claims men's vault gold

Published November 20, 2014

South Korea's Yang Hak Seon stuck an excellent pair of vaults -- including one that was judged to be the most difficult of the competition -- to claim gold in the apparatus' final on Monday.

Russia's Denis Ablyazin had taken the top spot with a total score of 16.399 -- the average of his two vaults -- before Yang scored 16.466 in his first attempt, a total that included an event-high 7.400 score for difficulty.

The 2011 world champion took it down a notch in his second vault, but lifted his execution score and totaled 16.600, giving him a gold-winning score of 16.533. That was 0.200 points higher than his qualifying score, which ranked second coming in.

"In the first vault I got a very good score and for the second I had a really good landing so I was pretty confident," said Yang.

Yang became the first Korean to win this event and the first to medal since Yeo Hong-Chul's silver in 1996.

Ablyazin ended in second after coming in with the top qualifying mark, while Ukraine's Igor Radivilov won bronze with a score of 16.316.

Chile's Enrique Tomas Gonzalez Sepulveda had the highest execution score in qualifying, but finished fourth, over a point ahead of fifth-place American Samuel Mikulak.

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