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ATHENS : Japanese gymnasts were surprising
pace-setters in Olympic qualifying while reigning world and Olympic men's
champion China showed vulnerability in booking a berth for Monday's team
final.
Hiroyuki Tomita scored 57.649 points to lead Japan's winning
total of 232.134 points with the United States, paced by leading
all-around qualifier and world all-around champion Paul Hamm, second at
230.419.
The Japanese settled for third at last
year's world championships but sent a message that dethroning China for
Olympic gold is well within their reach.
"We're still very nervous
but we're quite satisfied with our achievement," Japan's Naoya Tsukahara
said. "China is very strong. But if we put our strength together, we will
win this time."
Romania came third at 230.019 followed by
disappointing China at 229.507. Yang Wei, 2003 world all-around runner-up,
was seventh in all-around qualifying, the only Chinese gymnast to reach
the 24-man final Wednesday.
"China did not have a very good
performance," coach Huang Yubin said.
Hamm sparked the US team,
second to China in last year's world final, by scoring 58.061 points,
establishing himself firmly as the man to beat for all-around gold
Wednesday.
"I was pleased," Hamm said. "If I have the performance I
had I will definitely win gold. I just have to keep things
going."
Also qualifying for the team final were Ukraine, Russia,
Germany and South Korea, which boasted the all-around qualifying runner-up
in Yang Tae Young at 57.924 points.
Two dozen all-around finalists
and eight finalists on each apparatus were also set, with Japan setting
the pace in several disciplines.
Japan's Isao Yoneda, an all-around
qualifier, led horizontal bar qualifiers, scoring 9.80. Tomita received a
9.787 on the parallel bars to match China's Li Xiaopeng, the reigning
world champion on the apparatus, for the top score.
Japan's
Takehiro Kashima, the world horizontal bars champion who shares the world
pommel horse title, matched Romania's Marius Urzica with the top
qualifying score on the horse at 9.812.
"The whole team worked
together. That's how we achieved this," Kashima said. "It was very good.
But China is a very strong team. We can't tell anything about them until
the final."
The Chinese were hurt by falls from Xiao Qin on pommel
horse and Teng Haibin on parallel bars and sent only minimum numbers onto
the floor exercise, vault and rings, content to save best efforts for
Monday's title-defending showdown.
American Blaine Wilson, who tore
his left biceps muscle off the bone on the still rings on February 28, was
knocked dizzy after slamming hard on his back and head when he fell from
the horizontal bar on a backward release move.
"I have a giant
headache," he said. "I just accepted the fact I made a mistake and moved
on to try to help the team the rest of the way."
Wilson, 30,
scratched from the pommel horse, his weakest event, but scored a US-best
9.625 on the rings.
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