Japan won the men's Olympic gymnastics gold Monday, edging out the US by 0.888 points to win its first team event since the 1976 Montreal Games.
The Americans hit their last six routines, on parallel bars and high bar, to push past Romania and finish with 172.933 points. The Japanese went last and needed to average about 9.5 over three sets on the high bar to win. They did it with ease.
The Americans applauded the clutch effort, but they also celebrated their own.
Romania finished third with 172.384 points, followed by South Korea, China -- the defending gold medalist -- Russia, Ukraine and Germany. It was the first Olympics that Russia didn't win a medal in the teams event.
Needing 28.574 points on the high bar to overtake the US, Isao Yoneda, Takehiro Kashima and Hiroyuki Tomita were nearly perfect. The first two did somersaults backward over the bar and caught it to highlight their routines. Yonida scored a 9.787 and Kashima a 9.825.
By the time Tomita closed, he needed only an 8.9 to clinch. He could have gone conservative, but didn't, opting for a release move backward over the bar with two somersaults and a full twist -- good for a 9.85.
The Romanians, meanwhile, led most of the meet until two busted routines on high bar dropped them to third.
The final was contested using a new "6-3-3" format -- six gymnasts on a team, three compete on each event, three scores count.
Huang Xu said China would be ready for Beijing.
"We had some problems," he said. "If we didn't have the mistakes we could have won. The most successful team is the one that does things the right way. We will be the champions of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing."
Japan won the Olympic team title five times between the 1960 Rome Olympics and the 1976 Montreal Games. The US won the title at the 1984 Olympics.
It was only the third team medal for the US and its first at a non-boycotted Olympics since 1932, back when the club toss and rope climb were still part of the sport.
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