Veterans
To Lead Chinese Medal Crusade (16th November, 2005)
Zhang
Nan and Xiaopeng Li, the Chinese veterans will lead China’s
medal campaign at the Worlds. Feng Jing, who missed the 2003
World Championships in Anaheim and Lu Bo were surprise omissions
from the men’s team, despite their success at the recent
East Asian Games where they won gold and silver respectively
in the all around final.
Qin
and Fuliang competed at the 2003 World Championships in Anaheim,
while Yibing, Mingyong and Hongtao are all making their World
Championships debut.
Jing
has proven himself at World Championships level previously,
becoming the youngest male gymnast to win a World Championships
title when he took gold in the all around at the 2001 World
Championships.
China
has not won a World all around title since 1987, when Lou
Yun was crowned World champion in Rotterdam. Yun continued
the success of China’s only other World all around champion,
Tong Fei, who won the 1985 and 1983 World titles.
In
the women’s events, Nan won the all around bronze medal
behind Khorkina (RUS) and Carly Patterson (USA) at the 2003
World Championships and also the Athens Olympic Games.
Beam
specialist, Ye, is expected to perform well. She is the reigning
World Champion on beam and scored a high 9.812 to take gold
ahead of Romanian Catalina Ponor and Russian Liudmila Ezhova
at the 2003 World Championships.
Both
Nan and Ye have shown good form leading up to the competition
in Melbourne, winning medals at the East Asian Games and the
World University Games. Ye won the all around title and claimed
a silver on beam and floor and a bronze on bars.
Nan
finished a disappointing sixth in the all around final with
three scores below 9.000 but fought back strongly in the apparatus
finals to win gold on beam and bronze on floor.
Fei,
17, is competing in her second World Championships and will
be hoping to realise her dream of winning a gold at a World
Championships, in 2003 she only managed 4th with the women’s
team in Anaheim.
Look
for complete coverage of the 2005 World Championships in issue
one of Backflip Gymnastics Magazine. Subscribe
today!
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