No surprises as China leads men’s qualifying
Yang Wei sits on one of the parallel bars, Zou Kai puts his hand out of bounds and China makes enough little mistakes to drive a gymnastics coach to the chalk barrel.
Yet there the Chinese were, not only topping the standings in men’s qualifying Saturday, but doing it by a ridiculous margin.
Reigning Olympic champ Japan is supposed to be China’s biggest obstacle, and it was five points back in second place. European champion Russia, South Korea and world bronze medalist Germany—none of them came close. And the Americans? They had a great day and still finished nine points behind in sixth place.
“The whole team is united and very confident,” Li Xiaopeng said. “So we hope our strong performance will continue.”
Hear that guys? Consider yourself warned.
“China and Japan, they will fight for gold and silver, and the other teams will fight for the bronze,” said Germany’s Fabian Hambuechen, who finished second to Yang in the overall scoring.
Team finals are Tuesday.
The Chinese came into the Beijing Games as the overwhelming favorite, and nothing’s happened so far to change that. They’re winners of three straight world titles and seven of the last eight. They’ve got enough bling to make a rapper jealous, with 13 individual world titles and an Olympic gold medal among them.
Oh, they’re on home turf, too, their every move Saturday greeted with adoring cheers. Even the Chinese women’s team came out to see the show, looking more like star-struck groupies than gold-medal contenders of their own as they chanted Yang, Li and Chen Yibing’s names and jumped up to wave flags.
“We performed better than normal today,” said Yang, the two-time defending world champion. “Although we made some small mistakes, we did a great job in general. We are competing at the right time and right place with support from the people of our country.”
It’s not just what China does but how it does it. The Chinese have the kind of confidence Tiger Woods brings to a major, and nothing can shake it. They started on floor, one of their “weaker” events, and weren’t particularly impressive. Xiao Qin, Yang and Chen all had shaky landings on some tumbling passes, and Zou made a mistake he probably hasn’t made since he was 10.
Coming out of a tumbling pass, he was supposed to do a fluffy little transition move that would get him into the corner of the floor so he could start his next tumbling run. All he had to do was fall flat on his hands—only one of those hands landed out of bounds.
“It was not good enough,” he said. “I have room for improvement.”
Still, Zou’s score of 15.7 was good enough to get him into the floor finals, and he and his teammates slapped hands and smiled afterward as if they hadn’t even noticed the flaw.
Yang is a former world champ on the parallel bars, and he’s got Popeye-like arms. But when he went to push into a straddle above one of the rails on parallel bars, he hesitated oh, so briefly, couldn’t get enough power and had to take a seat on the bar. That isn’t the goal, of course, but Yang and the rest of the Chinese shrugged it off.
And why shouldn’t they, when everything else they do is so spectacular.
Pommel horse is an event so tricky it trips up many a team; the Romanians had two guys spin off the apparatus. Yet the Chinese put up one impressive routine after another, capped by Xiao’s textbook display. The three-time world champion’s hands were a blur as he worked them around the horse in a staccato rhythm, yet he managed to keep his lower body perfectly still. When he scissor-kicked his legs above and beside the horse, his upper body and lower body looked almost like they were moving independently.
His score of 16 was almost a half-point higher than anyone else’s, and China was so confident it didn’t even bother sending up its fifth gymnast. (Teams drop their lowest score on each event.)
They were equally impressive on still rings, an event requiring so much strength that fans wince just watching it. Chen has won the last two world titles on rings, and he moves so smoothly from one move to the next it’s as if an invisible wire is directing him. While the cables holding the rings shook and swayed on most other gymnasts’ routines, they barely moved while Chen worked.
On his dismount, he slammed into the mat with a thud that practically shook the arena, and never budged an inch.
Then there was Li Xiaopeng. The Olympic champion on parallel bars in 2000, he’s missed much of the last two years with injuries. He sure wasn’t feeling any pain Saturday. He got such great air on his vault some of the track kids might want to take note, and his score of 16.775 was the highest of the day on any event.
He also put up the highest score on parallel bars.
“There was indeed a lot of pressure, I was nervous,” Li admitted. “But we overcame our nerves.”
It would have been understandable had the Americans been nervous. After all, they’d lost reigning Olympic champion Paul Hamm on July 28 and his twin brother Morgan on Thursday night to injuries. That left them without anyone with Olympic experience, and they were competing in the first subdivision, when scores are lowest.
But the Americans, fourth at last year’s worlds, came onto the floor fired up and grew more animated as the meet wore on.
“We were all pretty calm,” said Joey Hagerty, who’d never even been to a world championships before. “I loved it, loved every moment.”
The most impressive performance came from Sasha Artemev, who found out Thursday night he’d be replacing Morgan Hamm and never even had a chance to work out on the competition floor. Artemev has perhaps the most pure talent of any of the Americans, and is far and away their best on pommel horse.
But he struggles with his consistency, often when the stakes are highest.
Not Saturday. Going last on pommel horse, Artemev performed with confidence and polish. His score of 15.25 was more than a point higher than any other American, and earned him a spot in the event final. Artemev will also join Jonathan Horton in the all-around final.
“To make a major team personnel change, compete in the first subdivision and qualify for the team finals is a huge accomplishment,” U.S. coach Kevin Mazeika said. “We are looking forward to competing on Tuesday.”
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