China pulls off ninth consecutive Asiad gymnastics men's team title
3/12/2006 12:16
China made the stunning ninth consecutive win in Asiad men's gymnastics
team competition in Doha yesterday, beating arch rival Japan with 377.100
points.
China featured its "dream team" back from Aarhus gymnastic worlds
where they upset Russia by 2.375 points to snatch the team title. Japan finished
third in Aarhus for two serious errors made by all-around specialist Hiroyuki
Tomita.
In Doha, Japan was downed by China again with a gap of 4.05 points
and South Korea achieved 371.500 points to stand third.
Although Chinese
former Olympic champions Huang Xu, Li Xiaopeng and Teng Haibin did not come due
to injury, the Chinese men's gymnastic team dominated the Asiad arena.
"I am
very relaxed during the match. I don't think it's a surprise at all to win the
team title as we just committed to our training after the world championships
and our coach arranged good preparation for the Asian Games," said Yang Wei, the
newly-crowned triple world champion.
"I don't think the number of gold is
that important, but you need to learn something from the match and learn how to
get strong for next match," said Yang.
Chinese head coach Huang Yubin was
satisfied with the team's performance. "We fully showed our strength and our
spirit in the competition," said Huang.
"But the Asian Games can only be
regarded as a mid-term test, and the real challenge will come at the Beijing
Olympic Games in which we will give all of our ginger to win."
Huang tipped
Yang Wei as the favorite for all-around gold in Doha after the qualification
round. "Yang Wei has an edge over Tomita at the moment and is more likely to win
Monday's all-around," Huang predicted.
Yang Wei, the all-round champion at
Aarhus worlds, is in the first place, followed by Tomita, after the Asiad
all-around qualification. The two rivals will replay the scenario of Aarhus on
Monday's matchup.
With Aarhus and Doha victories, the Chinese men's gymnastic
team has walked out of the misery from the 2004 Athens Olympic Games in which it
finished only fifth.
As for Japan, another men's gymnastics powerhouse in
Asia and the world, the second position is definitely not their aim.
"On one
hand, I think the result is acceptable, but on the other hand, I am disappointed
with the silver for we came for gold. I made mistakes, so I just feel sorry at
the moment," said Kenya Kobayashi.
"I want to get gold medal, but we are not
as strong as China. The Asian Games gave us a test and let us understand that we
have to do better," Ryosuke Baba said.
"On October's Aarhus gymnastic worlds,
we also lost to China. It's not a problem we could resolve within such a short
time, so we just need to prepare for the next competition," Shun Kuwahara
said.
"We had problems with our landing at the Aarhus worlds and the same
thing happened here again. Our landing is not as good as that of Chinese
gymnasts, so we need to close the gap with China and establish us with no
mistakes," Hisashi Mizutori explained.
"The gap between China and Japan is a
score. I think that's the problem and we have to improve our difficulty if we
want to beat China," Hiroyuki Tomita concluded.
In today's team final, the
fourth to the eighth finishers were DPR Korea (359.500), Kazakhstan (350.600),
Chinese Taipei (345.900) , Malaysia (336.000) and Iran (329.100).
China is
likely to prevail in men's individual events by leading five apparatus. In
qualification, teenager Zou Kai topped the floor exercise; Yang Wei headed vault
and parallel bars; Xiao Qin and Yang Wei finished first two in pommel horse,
while Chen Yibing and Yang Wei also placed one-two on rings.
Xinhua
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