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Updated at 10:40 a.m., Sunday, December 14, 2008

Gymnastics: China's gold rush continues at World Cup Final

Associated Press

MADRID, Spain — Cheng Fei won her second gold medal at the World Cup Final, capping a spectacular year for China's gymnasts.

Cheng, already a winner on vault, took the floor exercise title today, giving China five of the 10 gold medals at the two-day World Cup Final. Feng Zhe, who wasn't even part of China's men's team at the Beijing Olympics, tied France's Yann Cucherat for the parallel bars title.

Cucherat's teammate, Thomas Bouhail, won the vault title, making France the only country besides China to win more than one gold medal. Lauren Mitchell of Australia won gold on balance beam, and Epke Zonderland of the Netherlands took the title on high bar.

Hiroyuki Tomita, the 2005 world champion, closed out his career with a bronze on high bar.

China dominated the Beijing Olympics, winning the men's and women's team golds, the men's all-around and six of the 10 event titles. The Chinese finished with a total of 14 medals.

It was more of the same in Madrid, even with the entire men's team from Beijing staying home. China finished with eight medals; no other country had more than three.

Cheng, the 2006 world champion on floor, rebounded from her disappointing showing at event finals in Beijing, where slips on two tumbling runs left her out of medal contention and sobbing on the sidelines. Her score of 15.375 outclassed the rest of the field, though she had to wait to see if teammate Jiang Yuyuan could top her.

Jiang, one of the Chinese gymnasts whose age was questioned in Beijing, is peppy and powerful, and her routines are crowd-pleasers. But she had slight mistakes on a few elements and settled for silver, giving China a 1-2 finish on floor. Olympic champion Sandra Izbasa was third.

Feng had the highest difficulty mark on parallel bars, and that allowed him to tie Cucherat despite getting slightly off-balance early in his routine. Ukraine's Valeriy Goncharov, the 2004 Olympic champion, was third.

China's other medal came on balance beam, where Li Shanshan finished behind Mitchell and Russia's Yulia Lozhechko.

Tomita, perhaps the most stylish gymnast of his generation, capped the final routine of his career with another solid routine on high bar. But he fell forward on his dismount and had to put his hands on the mat, dropping him behind Zonderland and Australia's Philippe Rizzo.