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Chinese women's team followed men's step to pull off their first ever world championships title in Aarhus of Denmark on Wednesday. (Xinhua Photo)
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By
Sportswriter Zhang Rongfeng
AARHUS, Denmark, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese women's
team followed men's step to pull off their first ever world championships title
in Aarhus of Denmark on Wednesday.
Chinese gymnasts went through a flawless night with a
superb and consistent performance in the finals to earn 182.200 points in total
to triumph, while defending champions United States failed to sustain their
glory after two blunders in vault and uneven bars respectively to take the
silver with 181.350 points.
Russia was third with 177.325; Romania fourth with
175.450; Ukraine fifth with 174.250; Australia, sixth with 173.225; Brazil
seventh with 172.975 and Spain eighth with 170.475.
United States fielded all four experienced athletes
Jana Bieger, Chellsie Memmel, Alicia Sacramone, Anastasia Liukin from last
year's Melbourne worlds.
Whereas China put their eyes on drawing experience
for young athletes and sent a contingent of four debutants out of six (Zhou
Zhuoru, Zhang Nan, Cheng Fei, Pang Panpan, He Ning, Li Ya) in their preparation
for the Beijing Olympics.
The best two teams started from the vault to usher in
the red-hot race. United States got 44.600 points against China's 44.250 after
the first apparatus in spite of a disappointing 13.950 points by Jana Bieger.
The Americans maintained their leading position after
the second apparatus of uneven bars with a slim advantage of 0.325 points.
Anastasia Liukin marked 15.700 points to make up for the gap left by the fall of
Chellsie Memmel to gear up the title combat.
After the third apparatus of beam, China came up to
lead by 0.875 and never looked back with all six gymnasts marking past 15.000 in
the event, but Chinese gymnasts demonstrated a more precise and consistent
routines in the discipline to score more in collective.
China established a lead of total 46.750 points after
finishing the floor exercise, which meant United States needed to get at least
more than 15.580 points in average to win the gold in the same apparatus, but
they failed to make the miracle and settled with a silver with 181.350 points.
All Chinese athletes were satisfied with their
performances.
"This was my first time at the World Championships
and I think my performance was very good," said Pang Panpan.
"We all did well and stuck together till the very
end. We made some mistakes but this is gymnastics and mistakes happen, and I
think we can be happy with our performance," Anastasia Luikin.
"We made history today. We achieve the first women's
team title after 53 years' efforts, and to win a gold in team is a dream of afew
generations. Today we put our dream into reality, but now everything has to
start from the beginning."
"We next will be focused on our vault if we want to
keep the rivalry with mighty U.S.. We have the best vault performer like Chen
Fei, but as a whole we are not as good as the U.S., so we have to do more to
bridge the gap and catch U.S. on this part. If we can do that, I think we
actually can challenge U.S.," said Lu Shanzhen, the head coach of women's team.
"We are a very good team and we deserve the team
gold, but it does not mean we are stronger than U.S. I think U.S. is just as
strong or even stronger and a victory cannot prove too much. Let's go and see
what will happen in the future," added Lu.
"The team is so good today. They finished routines well out of six presentations, which is really astonishing. I congratulate them and the gold is not only a gold, but it's also a breakthrough for Chinese team and for the young players. You can expect a better performance out of the debutants," said Zhang Peiwen, head of Chinese delegation. Enditem
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