Chinese men eye gold-medal rush

China's Yang Wei performs on the pommel horse during the men's qualifying round of the World Gymnastics Championships on Monday in Stuttgart, Germany. AFP

Yang was the most successful man in Aarhus, Denmark, last year when he won three of his country's eight gold medals - the team, all-round and parallel bar titles.

And the defending champions could do better this time in the qualifying event for the Beijing Games.

The 27-year-old Yang leads 2005 all-round champion Tomita, who had to settle for individual silver last year, with Japan's Hisashi Mizutori in third position overall.

Yang scored 93.925 with Tomita achieving 93.625 and Mizutori 92.575.

European champion Maxim Deviatovski, in fourth, carries the hopes of Russia, which was hit by leg injuries to key gymnasts Nikolai Kruykov and Anton Golotsutskov.

The Chinese team scored a combined 374.275 points with Japan achieving 370.725 and Russia (362.175).

Romania, the United States and Germany compete on Tuesday.

But the battle looks set to be between the two Asian nations.

Tomita gave warning that he intends to turn the tables on Yang who trailed in second during last year's qualifiers but took the title.

But Chinese head coach Huang Yubin was pleased with his side's opening day.

"In general, I think the Chinese team did a good job today. But on some individual apparatus, we still made some mistakes.

"Some mistakes are acceptable for the world championships.

"The most important for us is that we clinched the top places in the individual categories. But it's only qualifying. Some tough competition is waiting for us at the moment. Anything can happen in the finals."

China has the chance of claiming four apparatus gold with defending champions Yang and Xiao Qin leading the parallel bars and pommel horse respectively, Zou Kai on floor, and Cheng Yibing, the rings.

Japan dominated the high bar.

Mizutori scored highest ahead of Tomita and Shun Kuwahara. Only two competitors per country can advance to the final.

China will have no representative in the high bar final or the vault which was led by world silver medallist Dimitri Kaspiarovich of Belarus ahead of Japan's Makoto Okiguchi.

Japanese newcomer Okiguchi warned that his team has what it takes to challenge China for the title after settling for third last year.

"Today was a really good day. If we have one like today I think we can beat China," said the 22-year-old from Kanagawa.

"Tomita and Mitzutori were leading the team in a really good way and that helped the rest of us.

"Three days ago the training was not so good. We had a lot of misses and it wasn't that good so we were a little frustrated and unsure."

The Chinese had powered ahead on their two rotations - the vault and parallel bars - with Yang leading the later.

But both Yang and the team struggled on the high bar, in which the Japanese excelled, with Liang Fuliang tumbling after losing his grip.

The Chinese also had problems on the floor with an error by Yang with Xiao Qin going out of bounds.

But they clawed back lost ground on the pommel and pulled ahead on the rings.

Huang said there was work to do ahead of Thursday's team final, and the all-around the following day.

"We did a very poor job on the horizontal bar. 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," he added.

AFP

(China Daily 09/05/2007 page23)