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Sports / China
Yang Wei?retains all-round gold despite fall
(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-09-08 02:37
STUTTGART, Germany - China's Yang Wei retained his all-round title at the
world gymnastics championships on Friday despite a spectacular fall from
the horizontal bar.
A coach tries to help Yang Wei after he fell off the high bar during the
men's individual all-around final at the 40th World Artistic Gymnastics
Championships in Stuttgart September 7, 2007. [Reuters]
Yang had built up such a big lead that when he flew off the bar and off
the landing mat on his final apparatus he still managed to notch a total
of 93.675, 1.475 ahead of second-placed Fabian Hambuechen of Germany.
Japan's Hisashi Mizutori took the bronze.
Fresh from Thursday's gold in the team event, Yang exuded confidence from
the start that he was not going to be beaten.
He executed a complex mix of swings on the pommel horse before performing
the day's most difficult rings routine, which earned him 16.400 despite
the odd wobble.
He stretched his lead on the vault, picking up one of the highest scores
on the apparatus even after getting a penalty for stepping out of the
area when he landed.
His controlled handstands and varied pace in his swings on the parallel
bars, on which he is the world champion, suggested he could well defend
that title successfully too this weekend.
"It is not a surprise (that I won)," Yang told reporters.
The biggest cheers of the day were reserved for home favourite Hambuechen
who clinched the silver with a daring horizontal bars routine that
fetched a whole point more than anyone else managed on the apparatus.
His rise up the standings was helped when European all-round champion
Maxim Deviatovski, who had been in second place after the fourth
apparatus, fell off the parallel bars and had to retire injured.
Deviatovski's exit added to Russia's misery at these world championships.
The once dominant Russians finished seventh in the men's team event and
eighth in the women's.
Last year's silver medallist Hiroyuki Tomita of Japan finished 12th after
an abysmal day on which he slid off the pommel horse and flew off the
horizontal bar.
Instead it was team mate Mizutori who rescued some pride for Japan,
earning his bronze with consistent performances on all apparatus.
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