Members of the Chinese national gymnastics team bow to judges during training before the start of the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Aarhus, Denmark October 13, 2006. The championships begin October 14 and finish on October 21. (Photo: Reuters)   Oct. 15 - Chinese team manager Zhang Peiwen said China achieved all their aims at the qualifiers after Chinese gymnasts dominated qualifying at the world gymnastics championships Saturday.

 

China led Japan 2.700 points in team ranking and are quite likely to win the title in the eye-grabing final. China also booked three top placings consisting of rings, floor exercise and pommel horse after the first-day's qualifiers.

 

In spite of losing the top position of all-around to Hiroyuki Tomita of Japan, China took the following three places and posed to challenge the defending champion in final.

 

Team manager Zhang Peiwen gave all his credit to his gymnasts. "All our gymnasts are excellent. We have hit all our targets in the first period in spite of some small flaws by sending those hopeful through to finals," said Zhang Peiwen.

 

"The young gymnasts are very good, even the debutant, and they presented very consistent performance all through the qualifiers. Zou Kai (18) is first in floor exercise; Chen Yibing (22) leads in rings; Xiao Qin (21) takes the first place in pommel horse, added with some second or third finishers, we handle everything well by now," added Zhang.

 

Zhang does not think the qualifiers can decide the results in finals and considers Japan as a bit threat for team title. "There is a big gap between qualifier and final on team competition. The qualifier applies a system of 6-5-4 (five gymnasts out of six to act and best four results counted), while the final is a system of 6-3-3 (three out of six to compete and all three results counted), so the stability and consistency are vital for the title,"

 

"Japan also did a good job as a whole except in floor exercise. They made several lapses in floor including Takehito Mori (the silver winner of all-around at 2005 Melbourne worlds). He fell out of the field and had his fingers hurt."

 

"But, Japan and China are in the very same class and each team have half a chance to win in final. It's exactly equal opportunity for both of us, so all depends on the ad-lib," Zhang commented as he sent out text message of qualifying results to some one by mobile phone.

 

"Japan are better on high bars than we do, but in other apparatus we are as good as them and even better in a few," said Zhang.

 

U.S., with a brand new, very young team, finished sixth behind Russia, Belarus and South Korea.

 

The qualifiers from subdivision seven to nine will be carried out on Sunday, who will mainly compete for the opportunity of top 24 to advance to Stuttgart 2007 worlds.