In men's events, young generation instead of Olympians won glory for China. Liang Fuliang, 18, scored 9.525 points on the men's floor exercise to take the first gold of the day before Zhang Shangwu won China's second gymnastics gold on the rings with 9.675 points.

Liang's coach Bai Shaoyuan praised the new men's floor champion: "Although he has been in the national team for only one year, he worked very hard and has showed great potential."

Zhang, a first-year student at Beijing Physical Culture and Sports University, said after his victory on rings: "It's my first time to compete in a multi-sport event. I want to celebrate my victory with my teammates and coaches tonight."

Dong Fangxiao grabbed the floor gold with 9.612 points after her frustration in the women's all-round, vault and balance beam events.

"I am so happy to win the gold," said Dong. "I made mistakes in the previous two individual apparatus. Lucky enough, I readjusted myself timely on the floor and brought my ability to full play."

Chinese team coach Wang Qunce, however, said three individual titles were far from their expectation: "We expected more golds in the individual events. We are competitive to win the men's vault, parallel bars and women's vault, uneven bars and beam."

It was Russia that won the balance beam and uneven bars.

Ekaterina Privlova, Russian national all-around champion, edged Chinese Ling Jie to claim the uneven bars title with 9.637 points before Lioudmila Ejova triumphed on her favorite apparatus of beam, scoring 9.587 points.

Son Un Hui took the first gold for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as she won the women's vault final.

"I didn't expect this," said Son, who collected only 9.075 points to win while other competitors made mistakes on the apparatus or landing.

Australian Rizzo Philippe won the horizontal bar in 9,812 points, a day-high mark for Saturday's 10-event finals.

This gold medal was the first for the Australian gymnastics at the world-level competitions in recent years.

Japanese Tomita Hiroyuki won by a 0.1 margin to take the parallel bars title with 9.687 points, Benoit Caranobe of France claimed the men's vault gold in 9.368 points and Romanian Ioan Suciu triumphed in the pommel horse with 9.800 points.

(People's Daily 08/27/2001)