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| November 24, 2002 | Sunday | Ramazan 18, 1423 |
Olympic champions impress while Nemov disappoints
DEBRECEN (Hungary), Nov 23: Olympic champions Li Xiaopeng and Marius Urzica restored some order in the men’s semifinals at the world championships Friday after a number of shocks in the women’s competition.
But crowd favourite and a clearly unfit Alexei Nemov once again disappointed his army of female fans by failing to reach the horizontal bar final.
While Romania’s Urzica’s swept effortlessly over the pommel horse to set the benchmark in the men’s contest, his compatriot Andreea Raducan made a premature exit from Debrecen by crashing to the mat while executing a full twisting somersault on the beam.
China’s Li was at his impressive best as stamped his authority on both the vault and parallel bar contests ahead of this weekend’s final.
His triple twisting Tsukahara vault sent the Chinese fans into a frenzy.
With chants of Li, Li, Li roaring him on, the dynamic gymnast completed his handspring straight into 2-1/2 twists second vault to perfection.
Having had little to celebrate during the women’s session after Asian Games champion Nan Zhang failed to reach any of her three finals, the supporters could barely contain themselves when Li excelled on the parallel bars to take the top spot.
The Russians have become an endangered species at this year’s event after only Nikolai Krioukov made it through to the last eight in the pommel horse.
Having already been eliminated from the parallel bars on Thursday, a below par Nemov failed to get going on the floor and suffered an astonishing fall from the horizontal bar to end his medal hopes.
Jordan Jovtchev once again relished his ‘most hated man in Hungary’ tag after he upset the home fans to lead the qualifiers in the rings.
In a high quality contest, Bulgarian Jovtchev outmuscled local favourite and Olympic champion Szilveszter Csollany by just 0.025 of a point.
Csollany did not seem too disheartened and said: “If I’m able to perform tomorrow in the final as well as I did today then I will be satisfied.
Romanian Marian Dragulescu grabbed the lead as expected with a score of 9.712 on the floor exercise but Japan’s Isao Yoneda produced the shock of the day with the closing programme of the men’s semi-finals.
A fast-flighted horizontal bar exhibition stunned everyone, including a bemused Yoneda, when the top-mark of 9.687 flashed up on the scoreboard.—AFP
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