Romania and the United States look set to duel again for gold in the women's artistic gymnastics after dominating team qualifying Sunday
Published:
16 August 2004 y., Monday
Romania, the 2000 champion, qualified the highest with 152.436 points while the Americans scored 151.848, stumbling to turn a 0.99-point lead halfway through the meet into a deficit of 0.588.
The Americans are the reigning world champions and the Romanians won gold four years ago in Sydney.
China, which finished third in Sydney, wasn't far behind, finishing with 151.085 points after competing in the evening session. Russia, the 2000 silver medalist, was fourth in qualifying with 149.420.
Ukraine, France, Spain and Australia also qualified for the teams final -- with Brazil, Canada, Britain and North Korea missing out.
"Other teams have more experience but we will do our best," China coach Lu Shanzhen said. "The Chinese will be the best because we are the best team in the world. In the team final we will do better than we did today."
Sunday's preliminaries involved six gymnasts, five performing on each apparatus and the top four scores counting. The system changes for Tuesday's team finals to a "6-3-3" -- six gymnasts on a team, three compete on each event, three scores count.
Šaltinis:
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