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China's Men Writing off Medal Hopes at Gymnastics
Reigning world and Olympic champions China are writing off their medal hopes in the men's team event at the World Artistic Championships after just scraping into Wednesday's final.
China - practically invincible in men's team competitions in recent years - have sent an understrength squad to Ghent, with their Olympic stars preferring to stay at home for the national games.
But the inexperienced youngsters have struggled to cope with the pressure here and China only just made it into the final, qualifying in seventh spot. Only the top eight teams go through.
The Chinese now look set to miss a podium spot for the first time in a decade with their team of novices unlikely to capture a fifth straight title after qualifying seventh on 218.296.
"This is a young team of novices and it was their first international, but they made mistakes," said Chinese coach Wang Hongwei.
The highbar was a disaster for the reigning champions with Li Rongjie, Feng Jing and Zhang Shangwu falling.
"I don't think we'll finish higher than sixth in the final," added Wang.
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