Hosts Overtakes Japan in Men's Team Qualifying at Gymnastics Worlds

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, August 18, 2003

Hosts Overtakes Japan in Men's Team Qualifying at Gymnastics Worlds

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Coming out last but finishing first, hosts the United States collected a total of 227.743 points to overtake Japan for the first place in the men's teamqualifying at the 2003 world gymnastics championships here Sunday evening.

Japan ranked second with 227.046, beating China to third by 1.927 points. Romania was in fourth, followed by South Korea, Russia,France and Ukraine. And defending champions Belarus was out of contention for the team title as it was in a distant 13th place.

"We're in first? Wow. I wasn't expecting that because we didn'thave our best day," said American gymnast Paul Hamm, who scored the most for the hosts with 56.848 points, second in the individual overall standings after Japanese Naoya Tsukahara who had 57.224.

"I think everyone had a rough start, and to see that we are in first is a good sign," Hamm added.

His twin brother Morgan Hamm said that "there is nothing like compete in the US. You hear people rooting for other countries as well as your own. It's a lot of fun. There's a lot of energy out there."

The Americans scored best on the rings with 38.637 points, ranked second in both parallel bars and the floor exercise with 38.237 and 37.398 respectively. They also finished third on vault andfourth on horizontal bar and sixth on the pommel horse.

Until the last subdivision where the United States competed, the Japanese kept the overall lead from early Saturday as they areon the way to regain the glory of their famous men's gymnastics era (1960 to 1979).

Led by Tsukahara, the Japanese presented extraordinary routineson all apparatus with their horizontal bar (38.387) being the highlights of the competitions.

Apart from Tsukahara whose father Shigeru invented the Tsukahara vault, Hiroyuki Tomita and Takehiro Kashima also completed exceptionally well.

China who competed in the first subdivision on Sunday morning, committed several errors to finish third overall in the qualifying,scoring a total of 225.119 points.

"A pair of our gymnasts committed errors, it's not good for them and the team, but we're fortunate as the errors were made in the qualifying, and we just hope not to repeat such mistakes in the finals," said Chinese head coach Huang Yubin.

However, China only fielded in four gymnasts, instead of the quota of five, on certain events, and coach Huang explained that "we weren't trying hard because of injuries and we're saving it forthe finals. The purpose today was just to get into the finals."

Yang Wei, the lonely Chinese entry for the men's all-around event, flipflopped on the horizontal bar and even sat on the floorexercise for 8.975 and 8.587 points respectively.

However, he scored more than 9.450 on all other four apparatus for a total of 55.987, good enough to rank 10th in men's all-around finals to be held on August 21.

Yang, the all-around silver medallist at the Sydney Olympics, felt miserable and declined to speak to any media on his way out of the near empty stadium with a seating capacity of 19,200 in themorning.

Teng Haibin, a strong bet for the parallel bars, scored a miserable 8.562 point to miss the final after he failed to executethe backwards double salto. Yet, the Asian double champion still had satisfying scores of 9.662 and 9.637 on his favorite events ofpommel horse and horizontal bar.

After the team qualifying, the Chinese however could certainly feel proud as twice world runner-up Xiao Qin scored a championship-high 9.812 points on his stronghold of pommel horse.

"The preliminary competition does not mean as much, our goal isfirst place for the team," said Xiao.

Li Xiaopeng, ace gymnast in the Chinese squad, also made the feat in his second attempt over the vault for an average 9.781 eventually.

The top eight teams will compete for the team title on Monday on a 6-3-3 format, and defending champions Belarus will also miss the Athens Olympic Games as only the top 12 teams will qualify forthe Olympic team competitions.

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