China wins men's team title at gymnastics worlds

The Russian gymnasts, who won silver with 256.585 points, felt disappointed with the result but were happy to secure the ticket to Tokyo 2020.

"We have a lot of motivation," said Russian star gymnast Nikita Nagornyy, who qualified first to Wednesday's all-around final. "We were very close to winning and I am sure we are going to get over it."

"On the one hand we are really happy we won qualification for the Olympic Games," another Russian gymnast David Belyavskiy added. "It was what we wanted, but of course we are very disappointed. We were so close. But we didn't manage to maintain our momentum."

Japan, the defending world and Olympic team champion, was leading the competition after a solid start on pommel horse and still rings, but they made some big mistakes in the rest of the competition and had to settle for the bronze medal.

"The Japanese team is very happy that we won the bronze," said head coach Hisashi Mizutori, a member of Japan's gold medal-winning team at the 2004 Olympics. "I believe each one did their best today and unfortunately we ended up in third place, which is regrettable, but we are happy because we secured a berth to Tokyo."

The three medal-winning teams in the team finals for both men and women will earn team berths directly to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo while other teams will have further chances to qualify in 2019 and 2020.