Chinese gymnasts set to dominate at Asian championships

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 21, 2003

Chinese gymnasts set to dominate at Asian championships

Boasting a star-studded lineup, hosts China will not meet too much trouble in defending their Asian Gymnastics Championships glories won seven years ago.

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Boasting a star-studded lineup, hosts China will not meet too much trouble in defending their Asian Gymnastics Championships glories won seven years ago.

The second Asian championships, a long overdue tournament after the first version was held in Hunan province, China in 1996, will see the strong hosts leading in most of the 14 events.

"Competition shows," said Chinese head coach Huang Yubin, who led the country to five golds in this year's World Championships in Anaheim, United States.

"Whether they can finish their routines successfully decides the results. The most important thing is that our gymnasts perform consistently," said the 45-year-old coach.

Although world champion Li Xiaopeng, Teng Haibin and Yang Wei are missing from the men's squad, world team winners China are still expected to triumph in the event here. Japan, bronze medalists at the worlds, are weakened without their double world champion Kashima Takehiro.

The 18-year-old Feng Jing, world all-round winner in 2001, poses as the strongest contender for the all-round title while his teammate Liang Fuliang, runner-up in this event at Asian Games in 2002, stands as another title favorite.

Yermar Yerimbetov from Kazakhstan is one of the challenges Chinese will face as the 23-year-old finished fourth at the worlds while South Korean Yang Tae Young bagged all-round and rings golds in the Daegu World University Games early this year.

World Cup vault champion Lu Bin is expected to score in this event while pommel horse specialist Xiao Qin, who fell from the horse in the team competition at the worlds, needs a gold here to justify his expertise.

"The boys have to bring their very best at the championships to score high points in their efforts to enter the first team for the Athens games," said Huang.

"We decided to rest Li, Yang as well as Teng who just recovered from a knee injury," said Huang. "And we'd like to give the younger players more opportunities to garner experience."

China fielded a world championship lineup for the women's team, spearheaded by world all-round bronze medalist Zhang Nan. World balance beam winner Fan Ye, Chen Miaojie, national champion Kang Xin and Wang Tiantian are listed in the roster.

"We sent a strong women's team of five first choice gymnasts to the Asian championships," said Huang. "Although they did a good job at the worlds, they are still too young to have enough experience to handle the Athens Olympics next year."

Zhang, 17, will be the biggest favorite for the all-round title while 15-year-old Fan are going to vie for the beam gold with Kang.Chen, Asian and national champion in the uneven bars, is rated the title hope for this event.

The only possible opponents for China in women's events are Japan who also sent their top gymnasts to Guanghzou led by this year's national all-round champion Ishizaka Manami.

"Japan field their strongest squad who attended this year's worlds," said Wu Jie, a Japanese team official.

"Ishizaka is the best women gymnast in Japan and the other three are also the top athletes in the country," he said.

"But I am afraid they are no match for the Chinese gymnasts, who finished fourth in the team event," he said. Japan failed to score a medal at the worlds in the women's events.

The Asian championships, evolved from the Asian junior competition, was a biyearly event if as originally planned. China rounded up 26 golds to top the medal tally as hosts in the first version of the tournament.

Due to the lack of finance, the second version of event, starting on Saturday, was delayed before Guangzhou agreed to hold it.

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