Team gold goes to China in Men's Gymnastics

Team gold goes to China in Men's Gymnastics




Chen Yibing holds up his fist after his performance.




China dominated Men's Gymnastics today, winning the Team Gold with a total of 286.125 points. Japan won the silver medal with 278.875 points and the United States won the bronze medal with 275.850 points.

China performed modestly on its first two apparatuses, the Floor Exercise and Pommel, but blew the field away with a masterful display in both the Rings and Vault.

A relaxed and smiling Chinese team was led by its veterans, Huang Xu, Yang Wei and Li Xiaopeng.

Huang performed well in the Rings, scoring 16.000. However, his performance was just a taste of things to come because Yang and Chen Yibing scored 16.300 and 16.575 in the Rings respectively, helping China be the top-ranking team on the apparatus.

All-Around specialist Yang continued his good form by scoring a high 16.600 in the Vault. Li then ensured that China would also be the highest-scoring team in the Vault by scoring 16.775, taking China's score in the Vault to 49.325.

China practically secured its gold medal by the end of the fifth rotation, dominating the Parallel Bars. All three Chinese gymnasts, Huang, Yang and Li, scored over 16 points on the apparatus.

China still managed to be the best-performed team in the Horizontal Bar, despite the apparatus being seen as one of the team's weak links. Youngster Zou Kai finished off China's gold-medal-winning performance by scoring 15.975 – the best individual performance in the Horizontal Bar.

Prior to the Team final, Japan was seen as China's main rival for the gold medal. However, Japan rarely threatened China and was only able to trump China in the Floor Exercise.

Japan's attempt to win the gold medal came totally unstuck in the Vault – it performed very poorly and was the lowest ranking team on the apparatus with only 46.750 points.

The United States looked as though it was going to challenge Japan for the silver medal, but its performance in the last two rotations was poor. The United States' Joey Hagerty performed poorly in the Floor Exercise and Kevin Tan was the worst performed individual in the Pommel.

The gold medal is a glorious success for China, who failed to win a medal in the Men's Team event at Athens 2004 after winning the gold medal at Sydney 2000. Three members of today's team, Yang, Li and Huang were all part of the gold-medal-winning team in Sydney