(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-05 10:22

Stuttgart - China looks set to surpass its gold-medal haul at last year's worlds as Yang Wei fired the 2008 Olympic hosts into pole position ahead of the Hiroyuki Tomita-inspired Japanese during men's qualifying at the world gymnastics championships on Monday.

Yang was the most successful man in Aarhus, Denmark, last year when he won three of his country's eight gold medals - the team, all-round and parallel bar titles.

Yang Wei of China competes on the parallel bars during the all-around team competition at the 40th World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart September 3, 2007. [Reuters]

And the defending champions could do better this time in the qualifying event for the Beijing Games.

The 27-year-old Yang leads 2005 all-round champion Tomita, who had to settle for individual silver last year, with Japan's Hisashi Mizutori in third position overall.

Yang scored 93.925 with Tomita achieving 93.625 and Mizutori 92.575.

European champion Maxim Deviatovski, in fourth, carries the hopes of Russia, which was hit by leg injuries to key gymnasts Nikolai Kruykov and Anton Golotsutskov.

The Chinese team scored a combined 374.275 points with Japan achieving 370.725 and Russia (362.175).

Romania, the United States and Germany compete on Tuesday.

But the battle looks set to be between the two Asian nations.

Tomita gave warning that he intends to turn the tables on Yang who trailed in second during last year's qualifiers but took the title.

But Chinese head coach Huang Yubin was pleased with his side's opening day.

"In general, I think the Chinese team did a good job today. But on some individual apparatus, we still made some mistakes.

"Some mistakes are acceptable for the world championships.

"The most important for us is that we clinched the top places in the individual categories. But it's only qualifying. Some tough competition is waiting for us at the moment. Anything can happen in the finals."

China has the chance of claiming four apparatus gold with defending champions Yang and Xiao Qin leading the parallel bars and pommel horse respectively, Zou Kai on floor, and Cheng Yibing, the rings.

Japan dominated the high bar.

Mizutori scored highest ahead of Tomita and Shun Kuwahara. Only two competitors per country can advance to the final.

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