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The second last to compete, Zhu grabbed gold with a score of
56.635 as compatriot Liu Lingling, the 2014 world champion,
finished just .285 back to snatch silver.
Britain's Bryony Page, silver medallist at the 2016 Rio
Olympics, collected the bronze ahead of MacLennan, Olympic
champion in 2012 and 2016.
"I didn't think I would get a gold medal, but I think my
performance was more stable compared to my practice," said Zhu.
"I put in a lot of effort to reach the podium.
"With the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 being postponed for a year, I
had more time to work to prepare and I made an effort to work on
the things I wanted to improve."
Despite China having won a combined record 11 Olympic medals on
the trampoline, this was the first time China had swept the top
two podium spots in either men's or women's competition.
Zhu's gold was also just the second by the Chinese women since
the sport was introduced into the Olympic program at the 2000
Sydney Summer Games.
He Wenna took top spot for China at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
MacLennan's fourth place not only ended her reign as Olympic
champion, but Canada's run of winning a medal in women's
trampoline at every Games.
"Obviously not quite what I was hoping for," said MacLennan,
still recovering from a foot injury she sustained in practice
nine weeks ago. "I was really hoping to have the opportunity to
stand on the podium for Canada again.
"The fact that I was able to get here, compete, represent Canada
in the sport that I love, and do as well as I did. I know I have
to be happy with that."
Japan's hopes for a first-ever medal in Olympic trampoline ended
with a shock when reigning world champion Hikaru Mori failed to
make it out of qualifying.
With only the top eight advancing Mori's chances disappeared on
the second of two routines when she nearly flew off the
trampoline to finish 13th of 16 athletes competing.
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Tokyo; Additional reporting by
Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber and Elaine Lies; Editing by Peter
Rutherford and Shri Navaratnam)
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