China's Yang Wei shrugged off years of frustration to win the men's all-round title at the world gymnastics championships on Thursday.

The silver medallist from the 2000 Sydney Olympics and 2003 worlds in Anaheim finally scooped the top individual prize with a total of 94.400.

He edged last year's champion Hiroyuki Tomita by 1.225 points with Fabian Hambuechen taking the bronze. He became the first German to win an all-round medal since Andreas Wecker finished third in 1993.

Yang's victory ensured China maintained their 100 percent success rate in Aarhus after their gold medal run in the men's and women's team competitions.

"I've been waiting for this world championship for a long time," a clearly relieved Yang said.

He had led third-placed Tomita by 1.825 points going into the final rotation, the horizontal bar.

His routine fell well short of matching Hambuechen's dazzling performance just moments before and even featured a bent knee while turning on top of the apparatus.

But Yang's mark of 14.850 left Tomita a task of scoring more than 16.675, a score that had not been awarded to any gymnast under the new scoring system at these championships.

Tomita drew 15.450 and a relieved Yang punched the air in delight before exchanging high-fives with his team mates.

"I'd been keeping my eyes on the points since the competition started. I changed something in my last performance on the bar because I wanted to make sure that I got the gold," admitted Yang.

Chen Yibing looked poised to complete a Chinese 1-2 after lying second with just his bar exhibition to go. It also proved to be his weak point and he missed out on a medal by just 0.35 of a point.

Yang began solidly on the floor. He combined his complex tumbling sequences with a superb demonstration of strength on his handstand. Had it not been for a stumble at the end of his routine he could have earned more than 15.125 he was awarded.

Muscle Power

On the pommel horse, he made sure he avoided the drama of the team final when he had slipped off.

On Thursday, he maintained his line throughout as he slickly rotated over the apparatus and then went on to produce an amazing display of muscle power out of his 55 kg frame on the rings to score 16.450.

He did even better on the vault. No one came close to equalling his score of 16.625 and from then on, Yang knew that all he had to do was to make sure that he did not fall off from either the parallel or horizontal bars and the gold would be his.

It proved to be his night.

After earning highest score on three of the six apparatus, Yang had fulfilled the immense talent he had showed on the international stage ever since he was part of the winning team at the 2000 Olympics.

While China enjoyed unprecedented success in Denmark, misery for the Americans continued when national all-round champion Sasha Artemev earned the dubious distinction of scoring the lowest mark of the day.

Three falls from the horizontal bar left him with 12.150 on the apparatus and dropped him from top of the leaderboard after the second rotation to last out of 23 competitors in the next round. He eventually finished 22nd.

(Reuters October 20, 2006)