USA First After World Championship Prelims

ANAHEIM, Calif. The U.S. Men raced to the head of the pack on Sunday during the Team Preliminaries of the 2003 World Gymnastics Championships in Anaheim, Calif.

Despite a few bobbles on the pommel horse, the U.S. responded with nearly 100 percent stuck landings across the board on vault, parallel bars and high bar to surge ahead. The U.S. earned a score of 227.743 to take the top slot over Japan at 227.046 and defending team champion China at 225.119. Team USA now advances to the team final at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim.

'We were trying to treat it like any other meet,' said team member Jason Gatson, who finished fourth overall to qualify to the all-around final. 'I expected us to be in the top two with China, because they are the defending World Champions. We knew if we came in and did our job, we'd be right up there.'

The United States was the only team to finish among the top 10 as a team in every event, in fact finishing sixth or better on every apparatus.

Paul Hamm and Jason Gatson qualified for the all-around final after finishing second and fourth respectively. Blaine Wilson took eighth overall, however only two athletes per country may compete in the all-around final.

Team USA finished with the silver medal at the 2001 World Championships in Ghent, Belgium. The United States has never before won a team gold medal at the World Championships. Belarus, which won the team title at the 2001 World Championships, failed to qualify for the final, finishing in 13th place.

Team preliminaries use a 6-5-4 scoring format, with five athletes competing on each apparatus and four scores counting toward the team total. In the final, only three athletes compete on each apparatus with all three scores counting. The scoring format change for finals allows for teams with less depth to fare better in overall placement.

The World Championships will be televised nationally on NBC Sports on Aug. 23 and 24 from 2-4 p.m. EST, plus one hour of primetime coverage from 7-8 p.m. Aug. 24.

Individual ticket prices range from $22-$75 depending on the date and session. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster.com, the Arrowhead Pond box office, by phone at 714-740-2000, and at all Ticketmaster outlets. For more information, log on to www.worlds03.com.

Team Preliminary (Top 8 qualify to team final)

1, USA (Hamm, Gatson, Wilson, Morgan Hamm, Brett McClure, Raj Bhavsar), 227.743. 2, Japan, 227.046. 3, China, 225.119. 4, Romania, 224.770. 5, Korea, 224.047. 6, Russia, 223.380. 7, France, 222.893. 8, Ukraine, 222.734. 9, Canada, 220.617. 10, Spain, 220.432. 11, Italy, 219.594. 12, Germany, 219.132.

All-Around Final (top 3 and U.S.)

1, Naoya Tsukahara, JPN, 57.224. 2, Paul Hamm, USA, 56.848. 3, Tae-Young Yang, KOR, 56.749. 4, Jason Gatson, 56.736.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

USA First After World Championship Prelims

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