SPORTS> China
Coach: No one to replace all-arounder Yang
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-16 01:46

LONDON - Chinese gymnastics head coach Huang Yubin on Thursday believed that the vacancy left by Olympic men's all-around champion Yang Wei couldn't be filled in a short time.

Huang also said that the Chinese men's team was less competitive in the team and all-around events due to the retirement of three veterans.

Six male and four female Chinese gymnasts are at the 41st Artistic Gymnastics World Championships held from October 13-18 in O2, the venue of the 2012 London Olympic Games. Except Olympic champions Chen Yibing and Zou Kai, the other four male athletes are World Championships debutants.

"Our men's team changed a lot as three top gymnasts all retired after the Beijng Olympics," said Huang. "Yang Wei, Li Xiaopeng and Huang Xu were absolutely important to our team and now we are obviously less competitive in the team and all-around events."

The Chinese men's team amazingly grabbed seven out of the total of eight golds at last year's Olympic Games. The three veterans played important roles in the team event and the 28-year-old Yang fulfilled his prolific career with the title of Olympic all-around.

"Yang Wei claimed his greatest achievement until his third Olympic Games. It meant that he spent 12 years to achieve it," Huang said. "It's a long journey. And Li Xiaopeng and Huang Xu also strived for years to stand on the peak."

This time, three-time Olympic champion Zou Kai was the only one among the six to compete in more than one event at the first major competition in a new Olympic cycle as he was going to consolidate his dominance in the floor exercise and horizontal bar.

"Our rookies Yan Mingyong and Feng Zhe satisfied me with their performances in the qualification," said Huang. "But we haven't found an all-arounder as excellent as Yang since the young gymnasts still need time to make progresses."

Yan defeated Olympic rings champion Chen Yibing at the National Games and performed well on Tuesday to take the first place in the qualification. Feng and another rookie Wang Guanyin made one-two finishes in the qualification parallel bars just as they did in the final at National Games.

The Japanese star Uchimura Kohei met less challenge in the men's all-around qualification as Fabian Hambuechen of Germany withdrew from the World Championships due to an injury in training on Sunday.

The 20-year-old all-arounder was just behind Yang at last year's Beijing Olympics and was expected to clinched the world title on Thursday.