Chinese promising gymnast Teng Haibin stunned the spectators on Saturday at the Athens Olympics qualifications, falling twice from parallel bar which is his strong event and getting only 6.775 points.

The mark was the lowest in the men's qualification round Saturday evening.

With such low scores, Teng failed to make the top eight, and thus was eliminated from the apparatus final.

Teng, 19, who claimed the pommel horse title at last year's world championships, said," I have prepared a new routine with high scores but failed this time."

"I felt a bit nervous and the parallel bar was the first apparatus to compete for us this evening," he said.

"It is nothing to do with the equipment. It is my own fault. I did not concentrate well in the performance."

Gao Jian, Chinese team leader, said, "Teng's failure on parallel bar was an accident."

Teng's waterloo on parallel bar has little impact on China's team fate in the qualification as five gymnasts of each team can compete in one apparatus and the scores of the top four will be accounted for to decide the final team standings.

After Saturday's competition, top eight teams -- Japan, the United States, Romania, China, Ukraine, Russia, South Korea and Germany -- qualified for the team final, with the top eight individuals qualifying for the apparatus final and top 24 for the individual all-around final.

(Xinhua News Agency August 15, 2004)