China beats Japan to win gymnastics men's team title at EAG

TIANJIN, China - China beat their archrival Japan to win the men's team event of gymnastics at the 6th East Asian Games on Friday.

Both without their top athletes as the elite gymnasts competed at the Antwerp World Championships in Belgium one week ago, China took 360.200 points to clinch the title, 6.1 points ahead of Japan.

South Korea finished third in 340.100 points.

"Our gymnasts came here to gain experience," said Wang Hongwei, coach of the Chinese team . "We hope our young gymantsts could grow up as soon as possible."

Liu Rongbing added a gold of men's all around to the host team with 90.650 points.

Liu's teammates Deng Shudi and Huang Yuguo trailed in 90.350 and 89.400 points respectively, but the bronze medal was awarded to Shogo Nonomura from Japan as each team could only have two of their best gymnasts at maximum to be recorded on the medal table.

"I performed myself today, just as I did at the National Games," said the 22-year-old Liu, who grabbed the silver medal of the event at the 12th Chinese National Games last month.

"Nowadays, there are many all-around athletes in our team, so the rivalry within the team is really tough," said Liu, who also qualified for the horizontal bar, parallel bars and pommel horse finals. "I tried not to think about the result during the competition and just did my best."

The women's peers will compete in the team and all around events on Saturday.