AP News, September 3rd, 2007
It's not often gymnasts get curtain calls in qualifying at the world gymnastics championships. It's not often gymnasts blow away the competition like China did.
After looking decidedly mediocre _ well, as mediocre as the defending world champions can get _ for much of the night Monday, the Chinese let everybody know they quite like their gold medals and intend to leave here with another set.
"A great finish," defending world champion Yang Wei said. "It's something we can enjoy."
The rest of the competition sure won't.
China finished with 374.275 points, largely thanks to a finale on the still rings that immediately should be packaged as an instructional DVD. That put the Chinese a whopping 3.550 points ahead of the closest thing it has to competition, Olympic champion Japan. They have 12.1 points on injury-plagued Russia, a gap so big the defending silver medalists would need to throw in an extra routine to catch up.
Yang edged Hiroyuki Tomita for the highest individual score, a repeat of last year's all-around final. And China had the highest scores on floor, still rings, parallel bars and pommel horse.
"Most important for us is that we clinched the top places in the individual categories," coach Huang Yubin said. "But it's only qualifying. Some tough competition is waiting for us at the moment."
The Americans go Tuesday. They have no designs on catching China, only trying to get there next year for the Olympics. To do that, they must move up at least one spot from last year's 13th-place finish.
If there's any consolation for Japan and any other medal contenders, it's that scores start over in Thursday's final. But there's some bad news to go along with that, too.
China wasn't at its best Monday. Not even close.
"In general, I think the Chinese team did a good job today. But on some individual apparatus, we still made some mistakes," Huang said. "Some mistakes are acceptable for the world championships."
The Chinese have won six of the last seven world titles, and the squad they brought here is like a gymnastics Dream Team. Half of the six have won at least one individual world title. The "slackers" are Huang Xu, who was the silver medalist on parallel bars in 2003, and Liang Fuliang, the 2005 bronze medalist on floor.
Then there's 19-year-old Zou Kai. The baby of the team, he can tumble with the best of them, posting the highest score of the day on floor.
Yet halfway through the session Monday, the Chinese were far less than perfect. Their vaults were spectacular _ high and powerful _ and their parallel bar skills are so high-class it makes other gymnasts shake their heads.
But they struggled on high bar and floor, looking for a bit as if they actually might be beatable.
Liang got in trouble on his high bar release move, a somersault high above the bar. He had the bar in his hands as he came back down, but he couldn't hang on and tumbled to the floor. Zou's sloppiness on high bar belied China's usual polish.
On floor, Xiao Qin put a hand out of bounds on what was basically a filler move. And Yang came up short on one of his tumbling passes, landing on the outside of his foot.
"We did a very poor job on horizontal bar," Huang Yubin said. "It is a weak point for us, so it makes us weaker. It's the problem we need to solve in our preparation for the Beijing Olympic Games."
Those miscues seemed trivial, though, after the dazzling displays on the last two events.
Their pommel horse routines were fluid yet powerful, and there was no laboring like other teams did. When Xiao, a two-time world champion on horse, whipped his legs up and around the horse in scissors-kicks, he could have powered a small plane. His score of 16.275 included a 9.675 execution mark that was the highest of the day, on any event.
China posted three of the seven best pommel horse marks, and didn't count a score below 15.1.
Then came the grand finale.
Still rings is one of the most difficult events because gymnasts have to power through a variety of poses and moves using only their upper body strength. Oh, and they have to do all this while keeping the support cables completely still.
Yang did the most difficult routine of the meet, yet he was so smooth he looked as if he was moving on a pivot. He landed his dismount as easily as if he'd just hopped off a step, not tumbled and twisted 9 feet to the ground.
Chen Yibing flowed from one strength move into another, almost as if he was saying, "Oh, so you like that? Well, then how about this one?" and the audience applauded every new position. The cables never swayed, staying as steady as tree trunks.
When Chen finished his routine, he grinned, bowed to the fans and then blew kisses to the fans, some of whom were jumping up and down and waving China flags.
And that was before they saw the score. As Chen exchanged high-fives with his teammates, his score of 16.600 posted, generating more applause from the fans. Chen ran out where the crowd could see him, blew more kisses and pumped his fist, holding up his index finger.
Yes, China is No. 1 in the world. Looks like it might stay that way, too.
"A nice finish," Xiao said. "Not only for me, but for the entire team. That's what we were hoping for."
