Gymnasts accomplish 10th straight sweep of Asiad team titles

GUANGZHOU - Chinese women gymnasts stormed to the Asiad team gold on Sunday, completing the hosts' sweep of team titles for a consecutive 10th time in the supreme athletes' gathering of the continent.

China's Jiang Yuyuan performs a routine on the balance beam during the women's artistic gymnastics at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, November 14, 2010. [Photo/Agencies]

China's world-beating men already had the team title in pocket, won on Saturday, and the women's gold allows them to maintain a 100 percent record on team events since Chinese delegation first entered the Asian Games in 1974.

Chinese tiny girls accumulated 234.150 points on all four apparatuses, leaving sliver-medallists Japan a far second in 223.250. The bronze went to Uzbekistan in 207.950.

Although Chinese tiny girls had a faulty third-place performance at last month's world championships, it is not a problem for them to repeat victory in Guangzhou as only four sides assembled enough competitors for the team event.

The Olympic and Asiad champions had a flying start with solid performance on uneven bars despite captain Jiang Yuyuan's tumble on landing.

He Kexin, dubbed "uneven bars princess", wooed judges and spectators on her speciality with her acrobatic signature flip, scoring a best-of-day 16.100. Her difficulty score reached an amazing 7.2, which few gymnasts in the world can manage.

He fell off the bar in the Rotterdam worlds, snapping her stunning 15 successive wins in all tournaments. But she did not allow herself to make the same mistake on home turf.

While the world champion-studded team did not present their best, they were just too powerful for other sides. Aiming at a clean sweep of all golds, they clinched the highest score on each apparatus.

Jiang, member of the 2008 Olympic champion team, had her worst day and slipped up in three of the four exercises. She was unable to hold back her tears after the rotation of floor on which she also misplayed. The 18-year-old, however, is still among the 24 all-around finalists.