August 14, 2008	Thursday	Sha'aban 11, 1429

BEIJING, Aug 13: Russia’s gymnasts fled the arena in tears on Wednesday after failing to win a medal in the women’s Olympics team event for the first time and vowed to get themselves on the podium in the individual events.

Dominant in the sport for four decades as the Soviet Union, the Russians have been struggling of late and after picking up a bronze in Athens their luck finally ran out this time when they finished fourth behind China, the United States and Romania.

“It’s so upsetting that this has happened,” Anna Pavlova, who lost marks on her floor routine for running beyond the white lines after her first tumble, said. “I can’t even talk about it.”

Her team-mates rushed past reporters, too upset to speak.

Pavlova will get the chance to lift Russia’s crushed sprits when she takes part in Friday’s all-round final along with Ksenia Semenova. The pair qualified in fifth and fourth place respectively for the individual showpiece.

Pavlova has also booked spots in the vault, beam and floor finals, while Semenova will get the chance to add Olympic gold to her world and European titles on the asymmetric bars.

Ksenia Afanasyeva (beam) and Ekaterina Kramarenko (floor) are the other Russians in the apparatus finals.

“We are going to try our best now in the other finals. Let’s see what happens,” Pavlova said.

The writing had been on the wall after Russia finished last in the eight-team final at the 2007 world championships following a vaulting nightmare in which Kramarenko mistimed her run-up and did not take off the springboard to score 0.000.

They won 10 successive Olympic team titles from 1952 (apart from the boycotted 1984 Games) but since competing as Russia they have failed to win gold.

The men finished sixth in the team final on Tuesday, having also missed out on a team medal in 2004 for the first time.—Reuters