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Romania
is off to a good start on floor with Suciu’s
routine. Potra is spectacular and solid. Dragulescu
stumbles on his double layout in his first tumbling run
and has problems on his double double. 26,911.
The Ukrainians
struggle to land their vaults. Only 27,674.(Kasperovich
on the photo, right>)
Yohan Mounard (FRA)
gives the fans something to cheer about with a great
routine on bars. Florent Maree is less clean in his moves,
but his routine has more difficutly. Bars specialist Yann
Cucherat keeps cool, France earns more points: 27,775
points.
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Korea seems a little
demotivated on high bar, a fact refelected in their scores.:
26,962.
McClure (USA) is great
on bars. Bhavsar is a little less precise. Towsend is
fantastic. 27,849 in the end for the USA.
Fully aware of their
weakness on high bar the Chinese
leave out some of their more difficult elements. Their
strategy pays off with
no falls and more point than could have been expected:
27,362.
Grebenkov
(RUS) begins well on floor, but Bondarenko
falls on his first tumble. Nemov steps out of bounds on a
double front but is clean a whistle otherwise. 26,999 for
Russia.
Kruzhylov starts on vault for Belarus with a solid double
twisting Tsukahara. Sakarovich nails a great
handspring-double front. Sinkevich ends with a double
twisting Tsukahara. 28,061 points.
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Rotation
5: |
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Roman
Zozulia (UKR) is spectacular on bars
if not flawless. The same applies to Mikhailichenko.
Lipski finally scores well. Ukraine totals 27,412.
Dan Potra (ROM)
has the audience cheering for him on pommels. But then
Suciu falls. Urzica’s routine is a dream. Romania
earns 28,311 points.
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...
on floor, the Koreans stumble
to 25,6 points.
Deng
Weiwei (CHN) goes for stability on floor.
Feng Jing doesn’t have more up his sleeve either.
Only Li Rongjie is a bit more impressive. 27,187 for
China.
Brett
McClure (USA) gets off the a flying start
on high bar with 9,612. Towsend releases five times
and catches the bar safely every time. Perfect. The
audience cheers frantically. Paul Hamm tops its off
with the highest score so far – 9,737. 28,861 in
all!
France is hoping for a medal.
Cedric Guille is flawless on high bar. Cucherat falls.
Maree collapses on a handstand. Only 27,574.
<<
Florent Maree (FRA)
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Georgi
Grebenkov (RUS) is disappointing yet again
on pommels. Yuri Tikhanovski falls. Nikolai Kryukov is
magic here keeping the damage down for Russia. 25,312.
Belarus
starts well on bars with Kasperovich. Ivankov gets through his routine well.
Sinkevich is
great: 28,762.
Belarus
now leads the USA and France by over a
point.
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Rotation
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Roman
Zozulia is very messy on high bar. Lipski
is better. Beresh is clean and spectacular- world
class! 28,474.
Selariu
visibly fight against the rings. Dragulescu manages
his strength elements well. Potra is fantastic 27,624.
A
weak routine from Yohan Mounard on floor
might have cost France a medal. Cedric Guille seems
nervous too and not as dynamic as usual. Florent Maree
goes out of bounds on his first pass but remains
flawless after that. 26,974 in total. Enough?
The
young Chinese team is on pommel horse which
they like. Feng Jing starts off with 9,362. Li Rongjie
is alweays very prescise. Xao Qin’s routine is a
dream scoring 9,8. Stiil, only 27,374 for the Chinese.
McCain
has nerves of steel. He makes it through his difficult
floor rotuine without any problems. But Towsend sits
down his double front mount. Everything goes smoothly
after that and Paul Hamm anchors the USA for a medal.
But will it be silver or gold?
This
will be decided by Belarus
on high bar. Kruzhylov’s routine is anything but
solid but he still receives a high score. Dzenis
Savenkov is better and Ivan Ivankov wins it all for
his team with a great rotuine.
Bondarenko
finishes with a reasonable routine on rings. Grebenkov
isn’t in the same league.
Yevgeni
Krylov does his best. Russia finishes a
disappointing seventh.
Belarus
wins deservedly by over three points Ivankov’s
people were flawless and presented routines of high
difficulty.Ivankov
with the very last routine on high bar of the
competition:
Belorussia
wins the gold medal in team competition to the first
time in history!
The
Americans didn’t shy away from risk
either whereas the Ukrainians sneaked onto the medal
podium almost unnoticed not risking very much.
France can
celebrate a success with fourth place and strong team
showing. The young Chinese team proved that the future
is theirs. Romania and Russia were disappointing.
Korea was out of it from the beginning when one of
their gymnasts couldn’t finish his routine.
The
level of gymnastics was very high.
The new competition programme devised by the FIG
passed its test. (Nora Schuler / Reinhard
Linder) |
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