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Romania claim women's gymnastics team title
Gymnastics powerhouse Romania took the women's gymnastics team gold at the Athens Olympics in Athens on Tuesday with 114.283 points. Catalina Ponor, 17, European champion on floor and beam, became the last gymnast to perform on floor at the moment when she must get more than 9.051 points for her routine to overtake the then front-runner United States. Ponor, the silver medalist of beam and floor in the 2003 Anaheim worlds, made it and her stuck landing won huge applauses. She got 9.75 points. "I did my best for my team to win the gold medal. I paused for a second to see my score on the floor and then I burst to tears," Ponor said after the competition. Daniela Sofronie, 16, who took no medals in world-level competitions before, said, "We came here and hoped to win. The highest score we were awarded was on the beam and that is what granted us the medal." Ponor scored a night high of 9.762 points on the beam, 9.750 on the floor and 9.412 on the vault. Sofronie collected 9.400 on the vault, 9.562 on the uneven bars and 9.562 on the floor. Oana Ban, 18, silver medalist on beam in the 2002 Debrecen world championships, said, "I was certain that this competition was going to be very tough, but we didn't let the chance pass us by. I am very emotional right now about the gold medal." "This was our team goal from the very beginning. We know our skill on the floor and that is why we were very confident in the end," she added. Monica Rosu, who scored 9.625 points on the vault which was relatively a weak apparatus for Romania, said, "It's an amazing feeling. We haven't stopped crying. I was not afraid of losing the medal in the end, because I knew the Americans were not as skilled as we on the floor exercises." The American gymnasts were also in great form tonight but Courtney Kupets' errors on the floor gifted the team only 9.187 points, which widened the gap with Romania. The United States won the silver with 113.584 points. As Svelana Khorkina, the Atlanta and Sydney Olympic champion onuneven bars, could not show her best-ever performance in the final, Russia placed third with 113.235 points. China, who finished fourth in the qualification, suffered a string of fatal errors to rank only seventh with 110.008 points. Chinese team coach Lu Shanzhen said, "This result is the worst since I coached the team." "We expected some difficulties in the final, but did not expect that many," Lu added. "Our gymnasts are young and unexperienced. They could not adjust themselves in the tough duel," he added. |
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