China gymnasts win 11th consecutive women's team gold

INCHEON - China won a landslide victory in the women's team event of artistic gymnastics on Monday here, pocketing the 11th consecutive gold medal of the event at the Asian Games.

China took 229.300 points in total, 14.65 ahead of DPR Korea's 214.65 points. Japan finished third with 214.35 points.

Though there were some faults in floor exercise at the start, Chinese girls withstood the pressure and earned satisfying scores in the rest of the events.

"The performance of the girls was normal today," said Ye Zhennan, China's team manager. "It is the hardest time for the women's team because of being short of hands," he added.

He said, "In the uneven bars, four of our gymnasts had the world-level difficulty".

The Chinese team consists of first-string players who all possess amazing abilities. They had the highest combined difficulty average of the field yet they still managed to execute their routines to perfection.

China occupied all top three seats in the individual events except vault, especially in floor exercise where all Chinese gymnasts are ranked in the top five.

Chinese Yao Jinnan, the only one who had Olympic experience in the team, said she reserved something due to the foot injury but it is much better than before.

Her teammate Huang Huidan, the uneven bars champion in 2013 worlds, said she had been confident in winning the team event. As for the individual event uneven bars, "My archrival is Yao," she said and smiled.

The 39-year-old legendary gymnast Oksana Chusovitina, who has competed in six Olympic Games and ten World Championships, showed up in the event. This time the veteran represented Uzbekistan where she was born, after competing for Germany for six years since 2006. She took 14.675 points in vault, only after DPR Korean Hong Unjong.

"I think it went well," Chusovitina said when asked about her performance. "I had a foot injury a few days ago in training and today when I was warming up, I felt my foot was still not ready for all-around. So I decided just to do vault today," She explained. "I hope my foot will recover and compete in all-round at the World Championships."

The men's and women's individual all-around finals will be held on September 23.