"We have four in our team for the finals, and you only have to find three strong girls for each event. We're confident we can come away with a good score." she said.

Shawn Johnson maintained the stability that gave her the all-around world champion last year, accumulating 62.725 points after all four rotations to lead the qualification of women's all-around. Liukin was the second best despite her blunder, edging China's Yang Yilin by 0.025 points.

Both the United States and China clinched final berths in all six events but Chinese sat first on all the four individual apparatus with Yang topping uneven bars, Li Shanshan leading on beam and Cheng dominating vault and floor.

"I am happy with my work today," said Cheng Fei, the only member in the Chinese team with Olympic experience who is seen as the core of the Chinese team.

The 20-year-old admitted she felt the nerves when she took the floor after Jiang's flawed vaults. "I know I have to cheer myself up as I know I must set a model for my teammates after me. I am happy I managed it well." she said.

Lu Shanzhen, head coach of the Chinese women, said he would give his girls 70 points out of a total of 100 for their show, as He made a mistake which she should not have made on her speciality.

"It's a great pity that Kexin failed. We had hoped she could bring home a gold medal on uneven bars," Lu said.

Lu said she had a high difficulty and almost finished all her difficult manoeuvers before the fall. "She failed in a movement which is comparatively easy and that makes her failure even more regretful," Lu said.

But Lu said overall he is satisfied, in particular, with his team's first two apparatus of beam and floor exercise.

"I had been worried about our beam performance as it's our first apparatus and also one easy to make mistakes, but they did an excellent job," Lu said.

Defending champions Romania had placed third but were shoved down to the fourth by the Russians, who competed later in the evening subdivision.

The Russians were average on each apparatus with Ksenia Semenova, Anna Pavlova and Ksenia Afanasyeva sitting in sequence from fourth to sixth in all-around.

A fabulous routine on uneven bars gave the 15-year-old Semenova 16.475 points, a second highest score on the apparatus, making her a strong title contender in the finals.

She also showed her strength on all-around, placing fourth in 61.475.

Though there's a gap of almost 10 points between them and first-placed China, Romania's coach Nicolae Forminte said that they felt OK with a totally different lineup from the Olympic champion team four years ago.

"I'm satisfied and the team did not make big mistakes. They did not fall during their routines. It's not their best, they can do better. And I hope they do their best in the final."

"We only had one fall on the Beam (from Andreea Acatrinei). We have to accept it. There's no solution. I thought that would happen to her since she's a younger one on the team," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 11, 2008)