September 06, 2007	Thursday	Sha'aban 23, 1428

STUTTGART (Germany), Sept 5: The United States banished memories of last year’s dismal showing to book a place in the men’s team final at the world gymnastics championships on Tuesday.

The Americans qualified in fourth place for Thursday’s eight-team final after a solid team display that contrasted with last year’s error-strewn efforts.

Holders China topped the standings with the 374.275 they achieved on Monday and Olympic champions Japan were 3.550 behind in second.

A noisy home crowd helped Germany snatch third place, inspired by last year’s vault and all-round bronze medallist Fabian Hambuechen, who qualified in fourth place for the all-round final. Russia breathed a sigh of relief to take fifth spot after a nightmare qualifying session on Monday when they had to compete for most of the time with two limping gymnasts.

Joining them in the final are Romania, Spain and South Korea. France, Italy, Canada and Belarus do not go home empty-handed because their top-12 finishes guarantee them places at next year’s Olympic Games.

After last year’s scare, the United States’ emphasis was on a concerted team effort rather than individual brilliance.

Last year’s pommel horse bronze medallist Sasha Artemev had been near the top of the individual standings before the team decided to stick to their plan of him not competing on the rings, denying him a chance of making the all-round final.

Hambuechen delighted the near-capacity arena with an almost flawless horizontal bar routine full of high-flying release-and-catch combinations that gave him the top score on the apparatus of 16.025.

Romania were competing without vault and floor champion Marian Dragulescu, who has a back injury. They still managed a superb collection of points on the vault, including a 16.700 for Ilie Popescu, but let themselves down with several errors on the horizontal bar. –Reuters