Midway through his
Arabian double front
dismount here,
Brazil’s Diego
Hypolito won his
second world title
on floor. American
Guillermo Alvarez
(inset) placed
fourth, missing a
medal by .050.
POMMEL HORSE
A year ago he won the world title on pommels by
the biggest margin of the apparatus finals (.275), so
it didn’t seem fair to the rest of the field that Xiao
Qin was armed with . 30 more in difficulty in
Stuttgart. Executing a routine with a 6. 6 A-score,
the slender Chinese gymnast, whose pencil-straight
body only changed form for his scissor work,
increased his winning margin accordingly. Opening
with a spindle on the end, Xiao, 22, continued with
the most variety (Russian on one pommel, flaired
spindle around one pommel, pommel loops to flair
handstand pirouette dismount) of the eight finalists.
His final tally was 16. 30, leaving runner-up
Krisztian Berki . 60 behind.
“I felt a lot more pressure this year than last year,
because the Hungarian guy was very strong,” Xiao
said of Berki. “But in 2008 I think more people will
be applauding for me, so I must get used to the
atmosphere.”
Berki also spun a spindle on the end, invented by
compatriot Zoltan Magyar decades ago, and
showed his unique mastery of the basic scissor, one
of which he took to the handstand. And even
though he muscled his flair to handstand dismount,
Berki held off Great Britain’s Louis Smith by . 10.
Smith was fortunate to retain the
bronze, since he completely missed
the pommel on one skill. The result
was a significant rhythm problem, and
his B-score of 9. 10 was the lowest
among those who did not fall.
However, Smith’s 6. 5 A-score kept
him well above China’s Yang Wei for
Britain’s first-ever world medal on
pommel horse.
Built like a fireplug, Yang is both
blessed and cursed by his physique,
which is ill-suited to pommels. He hit
cold, but his body appeared hunched
throughout. Still, he edged all-around
rival Hiroyuki Tomita in both A- and
B-scores for fourth. Tomita might
have been robbed, since his swing and
body positions were superior to
Yang’s.
Third a year ago, Alexander
Artemev of the U.S. placed sixth and
never really had a chance to medal.
Despite the second-best execution
score ( 9.475), Artemev had by far the
lowest A-score ( 5. 7), which proved
the difference. On the upside, his flair
handstand pirouette to the end and drop back to a
flaired spindle elicited cheers from the crowd like no
other pommel horse routine. “I knew I missed a
hand placement on the dismount, which brings my
base score down 0.30, plus a few execution deductions,” Artemev said. “It was great that the crowd
booed [at my score]—I like that—but I need to go
home and get better…. These pommel horse guys
are so good that you can’t make a mistake.”
Britain’s Daniel Keatings, the youngest men’s
finalist at 17, placed seventh, having opened the
final with interesting Russians between the pommels, but then falling off the apparatus during a Wu
travel. Belarus’s Alexei Ignatovich followed in
eighth, also falling from the horse.
RINGS
Defending champion Chen Yibing of China was
superior once again for his positions, difficulty and
virtuous dismount, a full-twisting double layout that
was complete and stuck. The 22-year-old’s opening
sequence was just as impressive: Azarian-L-cross,
press Maltese, press inverted; Yamawaki to
planche; whippet to cross, press inverted; whippet
to Maltese. Chen was given a 16.700, the highest
score all week. (Romania’s Daniel Popescu and
Korea’s Ri Se Gwang also scored 16.700 for one
of their two prelim vaults.)
Runner-up Yuri van Gelder matched Chen in A-score ( 7. 3) but was loose on his Yamawaki-whippet
combination and extremely piked on his full-twist-
ing double layout dismount.
That the Dutch strongman defeated bronze
medalist Jordan Jovtchev in B-score is questionable, considering the Bulgarian, who had 7. 4 of difficulty, was steady throughout and showed a greater
variety of strength and swinging skills (layout
Yamawaki, Yamawaki, whippet to L-cross). After
Jovtchev, at 34 the oldest finalist, stuck his full-twisting double layout, which he had failed to do in
2006, he no doubt figured his placement might
improve. (He was second in 2006.) But when his
score came up as inferior to van Gelder’s, the disappointment showed on his face.
American Kevin Tan also had 7. 3 of tricks, and
fourth was a strong result considering his inverted
cross positions were relatively high and he failed to
control the landing on his full-twisting double layout. “You had the world’s best and it is one of the
toughest competitions I’ve seen in a long time,”
Tan said of his first world finals.
World Cup Final champion Regulo Carmona was
fifth, giving up ground in A-score ( 7.0) and showing
a sloppy full-twisting double layout. Still, the
Venezuelan (and first world finalist from his country)
held off Yang, who showed an O’Neill and clean
layout double-double dismount.
Lacking the difficulty to challenge for a medal
