Chinese unknown gymnasts Zhang Nan and Teng Haibin outshone a group of world stars on the second and last day of the Li Ning Cup International Gymnastics Master Challenge here on Sunday.
The Chinese gymnasts wrapped up nine gold medals out of 10 of the final event competition.
Zhang Nan performed elegantly on the women's floor exercise, collecting 9.400 points, well ahead of Verona Van de Leur of the Netherlands 8.850 and Maud Collas of France 8.763.
Romanian world champion Andrea Raducan, who finished fourth on vault yesterday, suffered faults on both floor exercise and balance beam and had to concede the fourth and sixth places.
Zhang, last year's national champion on beam, said, "I was nervous during the competition. Fortunately, I did not have big mistakes on floor like my other rivals did. I did not expect I can win."
Teng Haibin surprised his big-name fellows by taking the title on men's high bar with a day-high 9.825 points. Olympic Games team and parallel bars champion Li Xiaopeng had to concede a silver medal with 9.750 and Xing Aowei 9.725.
Teng, who entered the national team for only one year, revealed that his routine was very difficult. He said, "My routine has some striking connections that help to my victory. Besides, I did very well today."
Li Xiaopeng scored the highest point on vault with 9.768 and the second on parallel bars with 9.762 while Huang Xu won the parallel bars for 9.787.
Kang Xin claimed title on balance beam with 9.575, with world bronze medallist Sun Xiaojiao came to second 9.500.
Li Ning Cup, named in honor of world and Olympic gold medallist Li Ning, has drew about 30 athletes from Romania, France, Cuba, Belarus, Latvia, Holland, Ukraine, United States and China.
World and Olympic champions received the appearance fees of US$3,000 with additional prize money 1,500 and 1,000 awarded to the top two finishers in each event.
(People’s Daily August 19, 2002)
