Gymnastics giant in China Guangdong proved its superiority by taking four out of the 14 golds at the just-concluded gymnastics competition at the 10th National Games.
Guangdong, which reaped three golds in the last national games, further extended its gold haul at this Games, with the help of its star players Liang Fling, Feng Jing and Zhang Yufei.
Fang and Liang, two top gymnasts in China without chance to compete in Athens Olympics, helped Guangdong defend the coveted men's team title, after a close duel with host Jiangsu.
The women's team, spearheaded by Zhang Yufei, a rising star who was unfortunately eliminated from China's roster for the Athens Olympics because of injures, repeated its glory by edging old foe Hunan to clinch women's team gold.
Liang and Zhang brought in two more golds on floor and uneven bars for Guangdong on Saturday in a gold wave.
Hunan, the second largest gold winner in the last national games, maintained its grip on the second place at this Games by launching a late surge Sunday evening, thanks to its world champion Li Xiaopeng and national team member Han Bing.
Li, who withdrew from the team final because of new foot injures in the qualifications, proved his dominance on vault and parallel bars and brought in two more golds on the two apparatus for Hunan.
Han Bing won another gold for Hunan after upstaging favorites Zhang Nan and Zhang Yufei on balance beam.
Zhang Nan, the Olympics gymnast from Beijing, had a mixed day when she missed the gold on balance beam but snatched one in floor exercises.
Zhang's teammate Chong Wei unexpectedly got a gold on horizontal bar, bringing the Beijing team to the third place on the overall gymnastics gold medal tally.
New star Lu Bo of Jiangsu made his name by defeating Athens Olympic gymnast Yang Wei to snatch the men's all-round crown.
Veteran Huang Xu helped send Jiangsu to the third place on the gymnastics gold medal tally, alongside Beijing, after winning a disputed rings gold from defending champion Dong Zhen from Tianjin.
World champion Fan Ye won the women's gymnastics all-round gold medal for Hebei.
Xiao Qin, who failed to make into the pommel final in Athens, defended the pommel title and won a gold for the Army team.
Hubei reaped its only gold medal with the help of Cheng Fei, China's hopeful for breakthrough in international vault and floor competition, who claimed the vault crown as expected.
"Overall, I am satisfied with the performance of our gymnasts," said Lu Shanzhen, coach of the Chinese women gymnastics team on the sideline of the gymnastics competition.
He said the women gymnasts had done a much better job at this Games than in the 2004 Athens Games, in which the Chinese women squad ended up with only an all-around bronze.
But women gymnasts should have increased difficulty and improved arrangement of motions, he said, voicing worries that Chinese women gymnasts may lag behind in their weak apparatus of vault and floor while losing their advantages on their strong uneven bars and beam.
Under the international gymnastics federation's new rule, the limit on difficulty of routines will be lifted as of 2006 to encourage intensified competition, which poses a challenge to Chinese women gymnasts who traditionally have skillful arrangement of compositions but lacked difficulty, said Lu.
(Xinhua News Agency October 17, 2005)
