American women shrug off injury plague to lead first-day's qualifiers

U.S. women's team erased the humiliation left by men's team by finishing first in the first-day's qualifiers with a score of 243.325 at Aarhus gymnastics worlds in Denmark on Monday.

Chellsie Memmel, the all-around Melbourne 2005 world champion, recovered fully from her ankle injury to spearhead the U.S. to sweep past the qualifiers. Her teammate Anastasia Liukin also overcame the ankle problem to lead uneven bars, her sole apparatus, marking 16.200 points.

U.S. is so mighty as a whole by taking four first places out of total six. They booked four positions out of the top five in high bar, and finished one-two in uneven bars and occupied two out of the top three in floor exercise. Chellsie Mommel tops the all-around (61.350); Alicia Sacramone leads in vault (15.300); Anastasia Liukin (16.200) set the pace in high bar.

"My main focus was the team tonight. After Wednesday I can think about myself," said Memmel.

"We came in prepared and wanted to be one of the top teams. In my routine, I did not connect everything the way I would have liked to."

Sacramone expressed her wish to be a all-around gymnast in the future. "I hope that next year I will be a competitor in the all-around," said Sacramone. "We are happy with the results. I was actually a dancer before and I still love dancing."

Liukin felt disappointed with her sudden injury, but somewhat solaced to be part of the team in spite of taking on the uneven bars only.

"Everybody has a little bit that is hurting and you just have to live with it. My goal was to help the team to make it to the final. I was not thinking about individual finals," said the teenager.

"First priority is the team. We always help each other when someone is down. I think that makes us one of the best teams,"

About the performance in the uneven bars, Liukin told it definitely was not her best.

Romania went through a flawless qualifiers to rank second with a score of 143.325 points. Australia made a surprise to finish third in 231.700. The fourth to sixth are Brazil (230.475), Spain (229.775) and Italy (229.425).

China and Russia, other two powers, will go into the qualifiers and are quite likely to reach the top eight to reach the team's final on Tuesday.

Source: Xinhua