BEIJING — It came down to the last rotation. The riveting, back-and-forth battle between the U.S. and China, the two great superpowers of women’s gymnastics, would be settled on floor exercises with chants of “Chi-na! Chi-na!” echoing in the arena.
China prevailed after all three U.S. women made major mistakes in the set, claiming its first Olympic gold medal in the women’s team final. The world champion U.S. women claimed silver, as they did four years ago in Athens. Romania took bronze.
China scored 188.900, 2.375 points better than the U.S.
The U.S. was only one point behind going to floor exercises but faltered despite putting up two world champions in the discipline.
Alicia Sacramone had a costly fall on the balance beam, which preceded the floor for her team, then fell on the first pass of her floor routine. Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson, who figure to be in the thick of the fight for the all-around gold medal on Friday, stepped out of bounds.
“I thought there was an advantage because I’ve been on the international competition scene a long time, but I guess I let the pressure get to me today,” Sacramone said. “Today it got the best of me.”
Johnson had the highest scores on vault and balance beam, and Liukin was best on uneven bars, but it wasn’t enough.
“I thought Shawn and Nastia really fought hard, and they had a great meet today,” U.S. head coach Liang Chow said. “Unfortunately, we had two big falls and China had a good performance. In this kind of meet, you have to hit all of your events.”
Sacramone was forced to wait unusually long before given clearance by meet officials to begin her balance beam routine. When they finally let her go, she botched her mount, toppling off the 4-inch-wide beam. It was the first major mistake of the meet for the U.S., but it proved the turning point.
“I tried to look past it, I tried to keep competing,” Sacramone said. “I don’t know what happened on floor. I thought my feet were underneath me on that Arabian. Next thing I know, I was on my back.”
Sacramone’s teammates did their best to console her.
“It was kind of hard because she’s always the one who keeps everyone up,” Liukin said. “She just kept telling us that she was sorry. She’s a human; humans are going to make mistakes. We’re not robots. China did have a few mistakes, but they had less mistakes than we did.”
The U.S. had the advantage on vault, with Johnson matching Fei Cheng’s high score of 16.0. China took the lead on uneven bars with two scores of 16.8 or better, although Liukin edged them with a 16.9.
Midway through the competition, neither team had faltered. Cheng fell to begin the balance beam set, but then Sacramone did, too, leaving the podium in tears and scoring 15.100. Liukin (15.975) and Johnson (16.175) kept Team USA close, giving it a chance going into the final rotation.
“You know, I’m really happy,” said Liukin, a nine-time world championships medalist. “This is my first Olympic medal, so I’ll always remember this moment. A gold medal would have been a little better, but still, walking away from this competition knowing that I have an Olympic medal is a huge accomplishment.”
John Meyer: 303-954-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com
