STUTTGART, Germany - China's Yang Wei retained his all-round title at the world gymnastics championships on Friday despite a spectacular fall from the horizontal bar.

A coach tries to help Yang Wei after he fell off the high bar during the men's individual all-around final at the 40th World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart September 7, 2007. [Reuters]

Yang had built up such a big lead that when he flew off the bar and off the landing mat on his final apparatus he still managed to notch a total of 93.675, 1.475 ahead of second-placed Fabian Hambuechen of Germany. Japan's Hisashi Mizutori took the bronze.

Fresh from Thursday's gold in the team event, Yang exuded confidence from the start that he was not going to be beaten.

He executed a complex mix of swings on the pommel horse before performing the day's most difficult rings routine, which earned him 16.400 despite the odd wobble.

He stretched his lead on the vault, picking up one of the highest scores on the apparatus even after getting a penalty for stepping out of the area when he landed.

His controlled handstands and varied pace in his swings on the parallel bars, on which he is the world champion, suggested he could well defend that title successfully too this weekend.

"It is not a surprise (that I won)," Yang told reporters.

The biggest cheers of the day were reserved for home favourite Hambuechen who clinched the silver with a daring horizontal bars routine that fetched a whole point more than anyone else managed on the apparatus.

His rise up the standings was helped when European all-round champion Maxim Deviatovski, who had been in second place after the fourth apparatus, fell off the parallel bars and had to retire injured.

Deviatovski's exit added to Russia's misery at these world championships. The once dominant Russians finished seventh in the men's team event and eighth in the women's.

Last year's silver medallist Hiroyuki Tomita of Japan finished 12th after an abysmal day on which he slid off the pommel horse and flew off the horizontal bar.

Instead it was team mate Mizutori who rescued some pride for Japan, earning his bronze with consistent performances on all apparatus.