Reigning champions China beat Japan to defend men's team title at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships on Thursday.
The expected close showdown turned out to be a lopsided competition in which China led Japan from start to end, accumulating a total of 281.900 points for its third straight gold medal at a championships.
The Olympic Champions were left a far second in 277.025 and the bronze medal went to hosts Germany in 273.525, who delivered performance just as strong as in the qualifications once more to the home crowd ovation.
"It's the fifth time I've won a team world title and this competition has strengthened team spirit," said Chinese leading character Yang Wei, achieving his seventh gold for China including individual titles.
"This competition has been good for us. We now know the mistakes we have to correct and where we are strong in order to achieve gold in Beijing.
"I know that they (Japan) are stronger in the high bar, but we'll work on it," the 27-year-old added.
It is China's eighth world title, also the seventh in the last eight world championships, as they are poised to recapture the Olympic gold they lost to Japan in Athens.
Before the final rotation of high bar, China had extended the edge to 6.1 points over Japan. Although Japanese high bar specialists concluded their presentation with dazzling turns and somersaults, it was just too late for them to stage a comeback miracle.
Hiroyuki Tomita, who lost his all-around title last year to Yang, admitted they were just not good enough on the day but still looked forward to next year's comeback.
"Of course we were expecting to become world champions but we had problems on some apparatus," said the 27-year-old whose side struggled on the rings in particular.
"There was a difference of four points with the Chinese team. We are just going to go home now and try to get back to the top."
China started solid on floor where Zou Kai had slight insecurities in the execution but overall got through his difficult routine well (15.700).
Chinese led Japan by 0.425 points after the first apparatus and built up their advantage on pommel horse. Pommel horse expert Xiao Qin had a real world class performance, receiving an amazing 16.225.
It seemed that the title was already beyond Japan's reach midway when China scored a total of 47.525 points on rings and were 4.4 points ahead overall. Chen Yibing impressed with a well-executed layout and his 16.450 was the highest on the apparatus.
The Japanese side was a shock seventh after under-par performance on rings. Although they battled through vaulting back to second place, their mishap was aggravated with Hisashi Muzutori staggering in his landing.
German team, edging the United States for a breakthrough podium finish, went well as their only real mistake was from Philipp Boy, who had to touch the floor with his hands after his dismount on high bar.
Fabian Hambuchen showed that he also had high aims on the gold medal in the high bar final. His great routine including Kolman, Kovacs, Tkatchev and a perfect layout double-double dismount brought the German team 16.125 points.
The US ended up fourth, 1.25 points behind the hosts, due to bad luck on high bar with falls by David Durante and Alexander Artemev.
Although their extremely good performances followed on floor with the "lowest" score of 15.575 points for Sean Golden, they didn't manage to reach the bronze medal rank again.
Source: Xinhua
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