Chinese world champion Yang Wei beat Japanese duo Hisashi Mizutori
and Hiroyuki Tomita to lift gymnastics men's all-around title at
the Doha Asian Games on Monday.
Yang Wei scored 95.500 points against 93.400 points by Hisashi
Mizutori and Yang's arch rival Hiroyuki Tomita followed in third
with 93.250.
Yang Wei and Hiroyuki Tomita finished first and second in
all-around at the Aarhus world championships on October in Denmark.
Yang won his first individual world title in Aarhus in
all-round.
In today's all-round duel, Yang Wei came forward over Tomita
after the third rotation of rings by grabbing 16.550 points in the
apparatus and never surrendered his lead from then on.
Yang even outperformed his teammate Chen Yibing, the rings world
champion at Aarhus, on Chen's specialty, who recorded a mark of
16.500.
After three rotations, Yang, Tomita and Chen ranked the top
three positions in scores of 47.200, 46.700 and 46.500. Yang just
consolidated his margin by vaulting 16.600 points in the fourth
rotation. Tomita's costly vault error for landing on his rear
forfeited his chance of pressing hard on Yang, taking in just
15.450 points.
China's Chen came up with 16.300 to push Tomita to the third
place by taking the advantage of Tomita's mistake with only
parallel bars and high bar left.
Yang geared up to further extend his lead by scoring 16.300
points, highest on parallel bars, while error-prone Tomita
staggered on landing and had to settle with a tied third place with
his teammate Hisashi Mizutori before the last high bar
competition.
Yang went into the high bar with a edge of 2.450 points over
Tomita and Mizutori and a low difficulty routine is enough to
ensure the all-around the gold. Mizutori collected best 15.750
points in high bar and finished second in total, while Yang
showcased a fluent moves and earned 15.400 points to defend his
all-around title at Asiad.
"I realized the gold came to me when I landed on the cushion
from the high bar. I am relaxed mentally, but I can feel the
fatigue physically after the event," said Yang Wei.
"I think Tomita is my arch rival until I retire after 2008
Beijing Olympics. The victory brings me a lot of confidence for my
future career.
"I respect Tomita a lot and I think he is a very persistent
gymnast.
"I will try to become the most prolific athlete at the Doha
Asian Games and try to win two more gold medals in the apparatus
competitions."
Tomita spilt positive appraisal for Yang. "He is a very powerful
competitor for me. He can perform his skill out with high
stability."
"He can consistently increase his routines both in accuracy and
difficulty, and he is a very overwhelming gymnast in the world,"
said Tomita.
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(Xinhua News Agency December 5, 2006)
