Preview-China and U.S. set to dominate gymnastic worlds

Gymnastic powerhouses China and the United States are quite likely to carve up the upcoming Aarhus gymnastic worlds as they are gearing up to prepare for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

It's the first global competition as the new code introduced this year, which implements an accumulative points judging format, and both China and the U.S. aim to help their top gymnasts to adjust to the new points awarding practice.

With the Romanians and Russians going through major rebuilding, the American's main challenge could come from China.

Both China and the U.S. are plagued by injury, but that won't stop them from being the leading actors and striving for the top of gold tally.

Injury kept Olympic champions Li Xiaopeng, Teng Haibin and Huang Xu out of the tournament, but China can still boast to be the strongest in men's disciplines.

Defending champion Xiao Qin has already put half of the pommel horse gold in his pocket as his present form suggests.

China gave their priority on team events than individual apparatus, so the men's team gold is not unattachable if they can beat Japan, vanguarded by defending all-round champion Hiroyuki Tomita and Hisashi Mizutori.

"When we decided our line-up, we were much concerned with the balance needed for the team gold. The team events are our top priority, " said China's team head Zhang Peiwen.

"It's the most important gold if you are want to reach the top of gymnastic world, " said Chen Yibing. Chen, who is making his worlds debut, is competitive in rings.

World champions Chellsie Memmel, Nastia Liukin and Alicia Sacramone are ready to carry out another gold rush following their collection of four golds out of five on offer.

The only setback for the US was Liukin's ankle injury. The double world champion twisted her ankle about ten days ago, which has severely affected her landing.

Liukin's situation handed her rivals a glimmer of hope to defeat her in her special events of beam and uneven bars.

Eighteen-year-old Li Ya from China is viewed as a challenger to Liukin in uneven bars for the high difficulty of her routine.

"Li Ya has developed a new manoeuvre on the uneven bars and is another good prospect, " Li's coach He Hua said.

"Her starting score can be listed as the highest degree of difficulty. If she can perform it successfully, it should be confirmed and named by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) as the Li Ya spring."

Under the new code of scoring, the competitors have two seperate marks added together. The first mark grades the difficulty of routine, while the second mark is for presentation and execution and starts at 10 with deductions then taken off for mistakes.

The new scoring system was adopted by the FIG after several judging errors at the 2004 Athens Olympics, and came into effect at the start of 2006.

Source: Xinhua