37th World Gymnastics Championships: China Ranks Second Overall

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

37th World Gymnastics Championships: China Ranks Second Overall

ainst flaws in Sunday morning's first subdivision, China took the overall second place in the men's team qualifying at the 37th world gymnastics championships, being held at the Arrowhead Pond.

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Against flaws in Sunday morning's first subdivision, China took the overall second place in the men's team qualifying at the 37th world gymnastics championships, being held at the Arrowhead Pond.

The Olympic winning team accumulated a combined total of 225.119 points, lagging behind temporary leaders Japan by 1.927, with hosts the United States competing in the last subdivision.

"A pair of our gymnasts committed errors, it's not good for them and for 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.

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

Yang Wei, the lonely Chinese entry for the men's all-around event, failed to perform his best on both horizontal bar and the floor exercise 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 make the last 24 for the 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 the morning.

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

The Chinese could certainly feel proud as twice world runner-upXiao Qin scored a championship-high 9.812 points on his stronghold of pommel horse so far.

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

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

After eight of the 10 subdivisions, Romania ranked third with 224.770, followed by Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Spain and Germany, and defending champion Belarus was kicked out of the finals.

Only eight teams will qualify for the finals where a 6-3-3 format will be applied, and the top 12 finishers will qualify for the team competitions in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.

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