China completed a grand slam yesterday as its women's team followed the men's triumph to pull off their first ever world championships title in Aarhus of Denmark.

The Chinese gymnasts enjoyed a flawless night with a superb and consistent performance in the finals to earn 182.200 points in total to claim the gold, while defending champions the US failed to sustain their glory after two blunders in the vault and uneven bars and settled for silver with 181.350 points.

Russia was third with 177.325; Romania fourth with 175.450; Ukraine fifth with 174.250; Australia sixth with 173.225; Brazil seventh with 172.975 and Spain eighth with 170.475.

The US fielded its best and most experienced athletes with Jana Bieger, Chellsie Memmel, Alicia Sacramone, Anastasia Liukin all veterans from last year's Melbourne worlds.

China focused on its younger generation gaining experience and sent a contingent of four debutants out of six (Zhou Zhuoru, Zhang Nan, Cheng Fei, Pang Panpan, He Ning, Li Ya) in their preparations for the Beijing Olympics.

The best two teams started from the vault to usher in the red-hot race. The US got 44.600 points against China's 44.250 after the first apparatus in spite of a disappointing 13.950 points by Jana Bieger.

The Americans maintained their leading after the uneven bars with a slim advantage of 0.325 points. Anastasia Liukin notched 15.700 points to make up for the fall of Chellsie Memmel to gear up the title combat.

After the third apparatus namely the beam, China came up to lead by 0.875 and never looked back with all six gymnasts marking past 15.000 in the event, due to China's more precise and consistent routines in the discipline.

China established a total of 46.750 points after finishing the floor exercise, which meant the US needed to get at least more than 15.580 points in average to win the gold in the same apparatus, but the miracle did not happen and they settled with a silver with 181.350 points.

All Chinese athletes were satisfied with their performances.

"This was my first time at the world championships and I think my performance was very good," said Pang Panpan.

"We all did well and stuck together till the very end. We made some mistakes but this is gymnastics and mistakes happen, and I think we can be happy with our performance," replied the American Anastasia Luikin.

"We made history today. We achieve the first women's team title after 53 years' efforts, and to win a gold in team is a dream of a few generations. Today we put our dream into reality, but now everything has to start from the beginning," said Lu Shanzhen, the head coach of Chinese women's team.

"We next will be focused on our vault if we want to keep the rivalry with the mighty US. We have the best vault performer like Chen Fei, but as a whole we are not as good as the US, so we have to do more to bridge the gap and catch the US on this part. If we can do that, I think we actually can challenge the US.

"We are a very good team and we deserve the team gold, but it does not mean we are stronger than the US. I think the US is just as strong or even stronger and a victory cannot prove too much. Let's go and see what will happen in the future," added Lu.

"The team is so good today. They finished routines well out of six presentations, which is really astonishing. I congratulate them and the gold is not only a gold, but it's also a breakthrough for Chinese team and for the young players. You can expect a better performance out of the debutants," said Zhang Peiwen, head of the Chinese delegation.

He Ning

Zhang Nan

(Xinhua News Agency October 19, 2006)