On the „king of apparatuses“,
too, Frenchmen were first to become successful in the first decade in
the
history of the WCh: Joseph Martinez, Marcel
Lalue,
Georges Charmoille. They were followed by the Czechs
Joseph Cada
and
Miroslav Klinger,
who, however,
had to share
their title in 1922 with un-forgotten
Slovenian Leon Stukelj
and his countryfellow Petar Sumider.
The first US American who qualified for a final
on high bar even managed so become
world champion at the same time (1979):
Kurt
Thomas. The
Canadian Curtis Hibbert suprised 1987 with powerful style and the silver
medal in Rotterdam,
Scott Keswick
(USA) stood
twice among
the best 8 of this apparatus and
Chainy Umphrey
(USA) almost managed
to win the bronze medal in 1994 (4th
place). Defending Champion 2001 is the Spaniard
Jesus Carballo,
the silver medal was won by the Canadian
Alexander Jeltkov
in Tianjin 1999.
The 18years old Greece
from Athens, Viasios
Maras was
the big surprise in Ghent and he won the first high bar gold for
his country in the Flandern Arena. He repeated his success in 2002.
But twenty five years after Shigeru
Kasamatzu
(1978) a Japanese won in Anaheim 2003 on high bar,
Takehiro
Kashima . 2006 Philippe
Rizzo is the first
Australian who won a title for his country!
After a very long time of 18 years China won a gold medal again by olympic
champion Zou, Kai.
Rotterdam 2010, from the first up to the next to last exerciese the Dutch
local hero Epke ZONDERLAND led, but than came the Chinese
ZHANG, Chenglong with
the strongest exercise (7.5) and won. 2011 in Tokyo the champion from 2009
and the Olympic champion of Beijing 2008,
ZOU Kai, won his second high bar title at
these Worlds ...
