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| China's Zou Kai, Yang Wei, Xiao Qin, Li Xiaopeng, Huang Xu and Chen Yibing (L-R) wave to spectators on the podium during the awarding ceremony for gymnastics artistic men's team competition of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at National Indoor Stadium in Beijing, China, Aug. 12, 2008. The Chinese team won the gold medal of the event with 286.125 points. (Xinhua/Wang Lei) |
by sportswriter Chen Yu
BEIJING, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- China's formidable male gymnasts stormed to a long-awaited Olympic team gold before an ecstatic home crowd on Tuesday.
They claimed the title at 286.125 points, beating defending Olympic champions Japan to second place by a comfortable margin of 7.25 points. The United States took the bronze at 275.850 points.
The gold is also the first team gold for the Chinese delegation at the Beijing Olympics.
When the score of China's last performer Zou Kai flashed on the big screen, the Chinese gymnasts and coaches burst into tears, hugs and smiles-tears-mix. The National Indoor Stadium exploded with applause and cheering.
The win added to the Chinese men's two consecutive world championships, and eventually gave China's male gymnasts the chance to come into terms with their painful failure four years ago in Athens.
It's all about hometown heroes playing before home crowd. Every routine from the Chinese team featuring three world champions was met with deafening cheers and applause, as the Chinese nailed next-to-perfect movements on their apparatus.
Except for a brief tie with the Japanese on the first apparatus of floor exercise, in which the hosts trailed by merely 0.05 points, the Chinese kept their edge throughout the rest of the competition, with start values and execution way above the field.
Double all-around world champion Yang Wei's face looked emotionless through the first three of his five apparatus, though his impeccable routines always ignited cheers and chants like "go head, go head" from the crowd.
The crowd's cheers eventually brought broad smile to Yang's face when he finished his fourth apparatus, vault, with 16.60 points, the second highest only behind teammate Li Xiaopeng. After vault, the Chinese shot to first by big margin, and the team gold seemed within reach.
Li, with the team gold at the Beijing Games, equaled China's gymnastics legend Li Ning's three Olympic golds and even surpassed the latter in terms of his total number of gold medals.
Not only veterans like Yang Wei, Li Xiaopeng and Huang Xu, upstarts like Xiao Qin, Chen Yubing and Zou Kai also did their share well.
Xiao Qin, a three-time pommel horse world champion scored the highest 16.100 points on his specialty, helping the hosts come from behind to lead Japan by 0.4 points. Chen Yinbing contributed 16.775 points, also the highest, on his specialty rings.
The high-spirited Chinese gymnasts high-fived each other between their routines. After their fourth apparatus, with an ensuring lead, they sat aside relaxed and smile watching other teams performing.
But the last two apparatus saw a close duel between Japan and the United States, as Japan only came from behind to beat the Americans in the last rotation.
The injury-plagued U.S. team, silver-medalist in Athens, brought surprise as all its team members, including the replacements to twin bothers Paul Hamm and Paul Hamm, performed far better than in the qualifications.
"It's China's male gymnasts' best performance in the past three years," said Gao Jian, director of the gymnastics center of the General Administration of Sport. "A team gold medal in Beijing is even more important than the one in Sydney."
"Eventually, we made up for our failure in Athens, something we must do for our countrymen," he said.
Huang Yubin, head coach of the Chinese gymnastics team, said: "the veterans kept the team psychologically stable, and the upstarts also did their job well."
"I think the only thing that can help relieve the pressure on our athletes while playing on home ground is technical maturity," he added.
Yang Wei said he placed the team gold above an individual gold. "I am greatly relieved after winning the team gold. My nearest gold now is an all-around gold medal, and then other individual titles. But I am relaxed now," he said.
The Chinese won their first-ever men's team gold at the Sydney Games in 2000 but failed to build on the achievement in Athens, losing to arch-rivals Japan and only finishing fifth.
They bounced back with terrific results in the past two championships, pocketing five gold medals in Stuttgart last year and a record eight the previous year in Arhus including the most coveted team titles.
The Japanese also said they were satisfied with a silver, though there was regret. "The Chinese team is very strong. I feel a little regretful and depressed but our whole team tried their best. I think the silver is good enough," said Koki Sakamoto of the Japanese team.
As for their mistake on vault, coach of the Japanese team Koji Gushiken said: "When the vault was over I was wondering how things were going, but then my athletes performed very well on parallel bars and horizontal bars. I'm relieved that we won the silver medal."
The Americans said the bronze medal may be a wonderful surprise but also something they had expected. "We always believed in ourselves. We knew if we kept at it and were tenacious our day would come. That's today."
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