TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan gymnast Shiao Yu-jan (蕭佑然) won gold in the men’s pommel horse event at the 2025 Cottbus World Cup in Germany on Saturday.
The victory marked the first career World Cup-level gold medal for Shiao, a first-year doctoral student at the University of Taipei. The event was also the first to use the new International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) scoring system, per CNA.
Shiao finished with a score of 14.433, aided by a last-minute decision to increase the difficulty of his final routine. His coach, Cheng Kun-chieh (鄭焜杰), said there was controversy over the scoring, as judges initially assigned an incorrect difficulty value.
“The initial difficulty score was 5.6,” Cheng said. “After I protested, it was changed (to 5.7), and we were able to achieve our goal of winning the gold medal.”
Cheng noted that stricter judging standards in the finals prevented Shiao from scoring even higher. “I think the total score should have been above 14.6,” he said.
Shiao admitted he felt frustrated during the preliminaries, as judges did not fully recognize the difficulty of his moves. However, he persisted, feeling it was important to do his best and fight for the gold medal.
He added that winning gold at a World Cup-level event has boosted his confidence and made for a strong start to the new year.
Cheng emphasized that the victory validated their training approach and routine design. “This competition allows us to see the direction in which scoring will move in the new cycle. It was a great win for us.”
