Chinese Women Hit New Heights

Li Shanshan

In the women's preliminaries, the Chinese earned new high scores with 16.100 on vault from Cheng Fei and Jiang Yuyuan, 16.950 on balance beam from Li Shanshan and 17.300 on uneven bars from He Kexin.

Yang Yilin scored a 17.050 on uneven bars, also besting He's previous best of 17.000.

China confirmed that it is no longer lacking on vault, with a Yurchenko 2 1/2 from Jiang Yuyuan (16.100) and double-twisting Yurchenkos from Yang (15.350), Deng Linlin (15.350) and He (15.300). Yang stuck her vault, showing that her foot injury from the recent Cottbus Cup wasn't serious.

Three-time world champion Cheng Fei performed a double-twisting Yurchenko (15.300) and her namesake vault (Yurchenko half on, layout Rudi off) for another 16.100.

In addition to the record 17-plus scores of He and Yang, Pang Panpan earned a 16.150 on uneven bars. Still recovering from a foot injury, Pang competed bars only in Tianjin. Jiang earned 15.850 on bars, typically her weakest event.

On balance beam, the women earned four scores above 16.000. Li Shanshan's 7.3 A-panel score brought 16.950. Sui Lu, a dark horse to make the team, scored 16.650. Xiao Sha earned 16.350 despite a missed connection, and Cheng scored 16.250.

Other scores were 15.700 from Deng Linlin, 15.200 from Jiang and 14.450 from Yang.

Cheng led the team on floor exercise with a new routine that earned 15.750. Jiang, who won the all-around at the 2007 "Good Luck Beijing" Tournament, was close behind with 15.700. Other scores were 15.200 from Yang, 14.700 from Deng and 14.200 from He.