Romania's Daniela Lacatus took the first gold medal of the World Games on Friday as she won the women's singles in the aerobics competition, while local favorite Yuriko Ito had to settle for fifth place.
Lacatus won with a score of 16.680 at Akita City Gymnasium, followed by Bulgarian Ludmila Kovatcheva (16.350) and Italy's Giovanna Lecis (15.300) as competition in the event for non-Olympic sports got under way.
In the other gold medal event of the day, the French team of Gregory Alcan, Xavier Julien and Olivier Salvan won the aerobics trio with 16.280 points.
Romania (16.100) took the silver medal and Bulgaria (15.812) earned the bronze while Japan's threesome of Kiyofumi Yamamoto, Hisaki Sato and Naoki Ichikawa was a distant eighth at 12.350.