The Chinese team were practically flawless on Tuesday, following one jaw-dropping routine with another to add the World Gymnastics Championship gold medal to the one they took home from the 2000 Olympics.
China finished with 171,996 points. The United States were in second place with 171,121 points, Japan were third with 170,708 and Russia were fourth at 168,771.
The Chinese have now won five of the last six team titles at worlds.
Defending world champion Belarus weren’t even in the finals, finishing 13th in preliminary rounds. Belarus barely missed qualifying for the Athens Olympics, too, finishing 0.012 out of the top 12.
The Chinese made very few mistakes, and the ones they did were minor. A toe that wasn’t pointed just so. Legs that were bent a centimeter. A small hop on a landing.
The US dashed any hopes they had of winning their first-ever gold medal at the worlds when they turned themselves in for getting a higher vault score than they deserved. It may have been the honorable thing to do, but it came with a price — four-tenths of a point, to be exact.
The US may have had a legitimate hope to win gold, but this silver medal has no tarnish. The Americans have now finished second at the last two worlds, a stunning leap for a team that ranked fifth at the Sydney Olympics.
The US finished almost three points behind China in Sydney. Now, less than a point is standing between the Americans and the very best in the world.
”They did a good job,” Stacy Maloney, who coaches US star Morgan Hamm. ”China isn’t winning by three or four points any more. They’re winning by eight-tenths. Obviously, it’s a new game.”
In the finals, only three gymnasts from each team compete on an apparatus, and all three scores count. In prelims, teams dropped the lowest of five scores.
That means one major mistake — or one low score — and a team could kiss its medal hopes goodbye.
Hamm is normally one of the steadiest American vaulters, with the tough tricks to stand up to the world’s best. His usual vault is a Kasamatsu 1 1/2 twist, and it carries a 9,9 start value.
But Hamm left out a full twist on Tuesday night, which should have dropped his start value to just 9,5. The judges didn’t take off for it, and gave him a 9,512 — four-tenths of a point higher than he deserved.
The US coaching staff reported the mistake to officials from the International Gymnastics Federation, and Hamm’s score was adjusted. It cost the Americans dearly, dropping them a whopping 0,775 points behind the Chinese going into the final rotation.
And the Chinese quickly sealed their gold. Competing on high bar, they did tricks you don’t even see in the circus. Teng Haibin flipped so high above the bar on his release moves he could have changed the flags that were hanging above the floor.
When he landed, the Chinese fans broke into cheers and Teng smiled. His teammates and coaches started slapping hands, and the celebration was on. As the Chinese team left the competition area, they traded high-fives with fans in the stands.
The Americans put on their own show, also on the high bar.
Blaine Wilson did one-hand swings, displaying the kind of flexibility and strength that probably made him king of the monkey bars when he was a kid. His 9,787 was the team’s highest score of the night, but it wasn’t enough. — Sapa-AP