1. Yang Wei/CHN . . . . . . . . . . . .93.675
2. Fabian Hambüchen/GER . . . .92.200
3. Hisashi Mizutori/JPN . . . . . . .91.400
4. Jonathan Horton/USA . . . . . .91.200
5. Kim Dae Eun/KOR . . . . . . . . .91.050
6. Rafael Martinez/ESP . . . . . . . .91.025
7. Flavius Koczi/ROM . . . . . . . .90.875
8. Liang Fuliang/CHN . . . . . . . .90.850
8. Yang Tae Young/KOR . . . . . . .90.850
Last Man
Standing
China’s Yang Wei out-tricked—and outlasted—the
all-around field for the second year in a row
By Dwight Normile
EPENDING on your perspective, the new Code of Points succeeded on one
front in Stuttgart: It separated the gymnasts at the top. China’s Yang Wei,
who shook his runner-up status a year ago by winning the Aarhus worlds,
repeated that feat in Stuttgart in a runaway win. And the 27-year-old Hubei
native did it by beefing up his difficulty so much that it didn’t seem like a fair fight. His strategy
also debunked the theory that form and execution were the way to go under the new rules.
In preliminaries, for example, Yang competed 39.70 points of A-score (difficulty). Among
the other all-around finalists, the next-highest total came from Japan’s Hisashi Mizutori at
38.50. Other challengers, such as 2006 all-around medalists Hiroyuki Tomita of Japan (silver) and Fabian
Hambüchen of Germany (bronze), lagged even further
behind with 38.20 and 37.40, respectively.
Such a safety net proved valuable, if not completely
necessary, in the end, when Yang finally showed the
exhaustion that seemed to have plagued some of his main
challengers. After all, the men’s all-around was held the
day after the team final, which is perhaps the most physi-
cally and emotionally draining event of the week. After
amassing a huge lead after five events, Yang provided a
glimmer of hope to his rivals for the future. He peeled off
the high bar while pirouetting to an elgrip, the same mis-
take that had sabotaged his all-around aspirations at the
China’s Yang Wei (center) won his second world all-
around gold, followed in order by Germany’s Fabian
Hambüchen (left) and Japan’s Hisashi Mizutori.
2004 Olympics. “I wasn’t sure I would win because I fell,”
Yang said. “I was a little nervous about that.”
