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Mustafina, Uchimura dazzle; China's Jiang 2nd

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-10-24 08:35

Jiang Yuyuan of China performs on the floor during the women's individual all-around final at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Rotterdam on Friday. Jerry Lampen / Reuters

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands - Japan's Kohei Uchimura and Russian teen Aliya Mustafina let their gymnastics do the talking as they gave dazzling displays to win gold at the World Championships here on Friday.

Both gave error-free performances with Uchimura shrugging off a shoulder injury to successfully defend his men's all-around title the day after taking team silver.

The 21-year-old led all the way to take the gold by a huge 2.283-point margin over Germany's Philipp Boy with the bronze going to Jonathan Horton of the United States.

Mustafina, 16, took her second gold in two days after helping Russia to its first ever women's team title.

She sealed the women's all-around title ahead of China's Jiang Yuyuan, with American Rebecca Bross bouncing back from a fall off the beam to take bronze.

"I feel more tired than happy," said Uchimura after his triumph.

"Now I just want to take a rest," said the Olympic silver medalist who becomes just the second man in modern gymnastics to defend his title after his predecessor, Yang Wei of China.

Competing with a heavily-strapped shoulder, Uchimura had the top ranking on the floor, second on pommel horse, rings and vault, third on parallel bars and fourth on horizontal bar.

When he performed last on the bar, he needed just 12.874 to win but he pulled out a full risk program to take the title by over two points.

Mustafina was also in a class of her own.

She scored 61.032 points on the four apparatus - vault, uneven bars, beam and floor - to finish ahead of Jiang (59.998) and Bross (58.966).

The Russian scored highest on the vault and second highest on the uneven bars and floor and third on beam.

She becomes the first Russian woman to win gold since Svetlana Khorkina in 2003, and could claim four more medals at the weekend as she competes in the finals of all the apparatus events.

Olympic team champion Jiang, 19, became the first Chinese woman to win all-around silver at Worlds and becomes just its second medalist after Zhang Nan's bronze in 2003.

"I knew I couldn't beat Mustafina because her level of difficulty is higher than mine," explained the gymnast from Guangxi.

"Normally I'm very nervous, but this time I was very controlled."

She said: "Competing against Mustafina makes me determined to go home to China and do better for the 2012 Olympics."

China's Huang Qiushuang's medal hopes were dashed on the final rotation when she stepped out on the floor routine leaving her off the podium in fourth and American Alexandra Raisman's challenge ended when she fell off the uneven bars.

Agence France-Presse

(China Daily 10/24/2010 page7)