just pulled it all together.”
After Worley and Johnson opened floor with
14.625 and 15.375, respectively, Sacramone
secured gold with her staccato style and sure-footed tumbling ( 15.325). Victory in Stuttgart
marked the team’s second world title, and its first
on foreign soil. (The U.S. won for the first time
at the 2003 worlds in Anaheim.)
Sacramone expressed her joy and relief in a
tearful flood of emotion. “We’ve been together
so long that we are like a family, a bunch of sisters,” she said. “We’ve gone through everything
together—the good times and bad times. Then,
to come out on top, everything came out at once
in tears.”
Like the Americans, the Chinese women competed only two gymnasts from their 2006
Aarhus worlds squad (Cheng Fei and He Ning);
Pang Panpan, the top Chinese all-arounder in
Aarhus, was alternate in Stuttgart. Key errors in
the first and final rotations produced an ultimate
deficit of 0.95 that placed China second.
China competed in the same event order as
the U.S., but it took three rotations for the
Chinese to scrape together a slim advantage. On
vault, reigning world vault champion Cheng sat
down a usually reliable 21⁄2-twisting Yurchenko.
Immaculate technique and dynamic releases typified China’s bars sets. He performed a cast, jam
to dislocate, Jaeger; full turn to piked Jaeger;
and Pak salto. Jiang Yuyan did an Ono-half to
Tkatchev; Jaeger; Pak salto; and double layout
dismount. Yang Yilin landed low on her double
layout dismount, but the rest of her routine was
clean (11⁄
2 pirouette, Tkatchev; Ono, piked
Jaeger; Pak; Ono, Jaeger).
On beam, Cheng had a balance check after a
flip-flop, full. Li Shanshan followed, seamless
except for a wobble on her opening tumbling
combination (flip-flop, layout, whip) and a step
on her dismount (roundoff, flip-flop, double
pike). Xiao Sha’s opening combination (two two-foot flip-flops, whip) made for a positive start to
Jiang Yuyan (left) was
all smiles during her
floor exercise, but
she and her Chinese
teammates couldn’t
hide their disappoint-
ment with their run-
ner-up finish (from
left): Jiang Yuyan,
Xiao Sha, Li
Shanshan, He Ning,
Yang Yilin, Cheng Fei.
TEAM FINAL
COUNTRY VT UB BB FX TOTAL
1. UNI TED S TATES
45.950 (1) 47.325 (1) 45.800 ( 4) 45.325 (1) 184.400
2. CHINA
44.375 ( 5) 46.650 ( 2) 48.150 (1) 44.275 ( 2) 183.450
3. ROMANIA
44.825 ( 4) 44.175 ( 5) 45.850 ( 3) 43.250 ( 3) 178.100
4. ITALY
44.950 ( 3) 44.575 ( 4) 43.425 ( 6) 42.500 ( 7) 175.450
5. BRAZIL
45.000 ( 2) 42.650 ( 7) 44.850 ( 5) 42.625 ( 6) 175.125
6. FRANCE
43.900 ( 6) 43.150 ( 6) 43.325 ( 7) 43.225 ( 4) 173.600
7. GREAT BRITAIN
43.825 ( 7) 42.575 ( 8) 42.225 ( 8) 40.550 ( 8) 169.175
8. RUSSIA
28.850 ( 8) 46.175 ( 3) 46.450 ( 2) 43.050 ( 5) 164.525
(Apparatus rank in parentheses; complete results on poster section.)
