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Crash landing Leader falls during floor exercise, Romanian takes gold
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- Romania's Marian Dragulescu won the men's all-around gymnastics gold medal at the Goodwill Games Saturday after early leader Huang Xu of China crashed in his final event. After five of the six specialties, Huang had a commanding lead. But on the landing from his first series of flips in the floor exercises, he fell hard on his back and side. He also flubbed his next landing, and settled for 8.375. Meanwhile, Dragulescu scored 9.387 on the horizontal bar, giving him 56.048 to Huang's 55.999. He had scored the night's best vault, 9.750, and the second-best floor exercise, 9.312, but slumped to 8.962 on the parallel bars in his next to last event, leaving him third at that point. Belarus gymnast Ivan Ivankov, the 1997 world all-around champion, also had a chance to overtake Huang but ended with a relatively simple floor exercise, scored just 8.887, and took the bronze with 55.948. Ivankov was leading after three events, but then had trouble on the parallel bars, where he scored 8.887 to Huang's 9.537. Huang also had 9.712 on the rings and 9.700 on the horizontal bar in taking the lead. Dragulescu, who placed 13th in all-around at the Olympics last year, said this was his biggest victory - and biggest paycheck - ever. The all-around winner receives dlrs 20,000. Huang's second place was worth US$10,000. "I was trying to do my job, that's all," he said of the last-event dramatics. "I don't like the parallel bar, and I'm tired after three days," he added. Huang said the floor exercises are his weakest event -- "only halfway to success." "So I wasn't surprised to lose the gold medal," he said. Earlier, Huang had collected a gold on the parallel bars, a silver on the pommel horse and a bronze on the horizontal bar. Individual apparatus golds are worth US$6,000. Dragulescu had a silver from the floor exercises and a bronze from the vault. Olympic all-around bronze medalist Alexander Bereshch dropped out with a shoulder injury. His replacement, Brett McClure, placed sixth with 55.049, behind Bulgaria's Jordan Jovtchev (55.799) and Russia's Nikolai Kryukov (55.286). "I can't stand that floor," said McClure, who scored 8.700 on the floor exercise in his last event. "It was a good experience," he added. "I think I had a little advantage being an alternate, with low expectations. My goal was to get in the top six." McClure also had a bronze on the pommel horse and placed fourth on the horizontal bar. Dragulescu's gold was Romania's second of the Goodwill Games gymnastics. With the women's all-around still to come, China and Russia each had three golds. Australia, Hungary and Bulgaria had one each. In rhythmic gymnastics, Russian swept all five golds.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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