The young Chinese women's team tasted the growing pain and paid the price for their lack of experience to miss a medal at the 2003 Gymnastics World Championships on Wednesday at the Arrowhead Pond Stadium.

Gymnast Hollie Vise, of the United States, performs her routine on the beam during the women's team finals at the World Gymnastics Championships in Anaheim, California August 20, 2003. The U.S. women won the event, with Romania taking second and Australia finishing third. [Reuters]

The top finishers of the preliminaries only finished fourth (110.259) after the United States (112.573), Romania (110.833) and Australia (110.335).

Spain, Russia, Ukraine and Brazil were placed from fifth to eighth.

"This result is quite acceptable and that's our real strength," said Lu Shanzhen, the head coach of the Chinese women's team.

"People gave high expectations after we finished first in the preliminaries, but I know that my team still have many problems."

China led the balance beam with 28.587, and finished fourth on the uneven bars. But they did a poor job on the vault and floor exercise to only finish seventh.

Zhang Nan, who won four gold medals at the Pusan Asian Games, collected 9.237 on vault, 9.625 on balance beam and mere 8.587 on floor. The young guns Lin Li and Li Ya gave out the best performance among the rookies. Lin, who led the uneven bars in the preliminaries with 9.637, contributed 9.45 on uneven bars and 9.337 on floor. Li scored 9.587 on uneven bars and 9.487 on balance beam.

But the other two, Fan Ye and Wang Tiantian, each committed a serious mistake on uneven bars and vault. Fan, the third finisher on uneven bars at 9.612, fell off the bar to score only 9.025. Wang fell on the head at landing on vault to get 8.737.

The national all-around champion Kang Xin only gained 9.087 on vault and 8.825 on floor.

Lu said that the team have not participated in big events for almost one year and some players even have not even competed in the national competitions.

"They don't have the abilities to perform consistently at such a big event. They need more practice and have a long way to go."

But with all the ups and downs, the young squad have grown up a lot.

"We came here to qualify for the 2004 Olympic Games and we did it. And the team got through a real test and collected much experience, that's what we needed most," said the head coach.

Home winners

Going through so many misfortune and setbacks before the team's finals, the hosts really hit their first world title.

"It's the greatest victory for the United States and it's like a dream coming true," said Bob Colarossi, the ecstatic president of the USA Gymnastics.

The hosts lost the third key gymnasts Courtney Kupets just on the eve of the finals. The national all-around champion and 2002 world champion on the uneven bars, tore her left Achilles' tendon during the practice.

The team had lost national vault champion Annia Hatch to a knee injury and 2002 world balance beam champion Ashley Postell to illness last week.

But the final line-up - Chellsie Memmel, Carly Patterson, Tasha Schwikert, Hollie Vise and Terin Humphrey - did a great job with the strong support from the over 12,000 home fans.

"I think we really deserved this. We had all the bad luck we could have. We just hit our routines when we needed to," said Memmel, who scored the highest point overall with 37.887. The fresh Pan-American all-around champion added to the team to replace Ashley Postell.

(China Daily 08/22/2003 page8)

Close

Today's Top News		Top Sports News
+Chinese media: Breaking new ground ( 2003-08-22) +China redefines seven criminal charges ( 2003-08-22) +President: 'Open dialogue' key to talks ( 2003-08-22) +Drunk driving cover on offer ( 2003-08-22) +Sobig fastest e-mail infection ever ( 2003-08-22)		+Arie Haan: have to surpass Milu ( 2003-08-21) +Mistakes cost China medal ( 2003-08-22) +Italian clubs in revolt over relegation row ( 2003-08-22) +Sampras to announce retirement on Monday ( 2003-08-22) +Raikkonen, Barrichello face fresh enquiry ( 2003-08-22)