Errors prove costly for Russia

Andreea Isarescu helped Romania to gold

Romania won the women's team gymnastics gold on Tuesday as a series of errors proved costly for second placed Russia.

Led by the top trio of 18-year-old world all-around champion Maria Olaru, 20-year-old reigning Olympic vault champion Simona Amanar and world floor exercise champion Andrea Raducan, 16, Romania finished on 154.608 points, with Russia on 154.403.

Despite having won the last four world team championships, Romania had never won an Olympic title in a non-boycott year.

The bronze medal went to China with defending champions USA only fourth.

Russia were in a strong position to take the gold medal until an uncharacterist error by the team's star gymnast Svetlana Khorkina on the uneven bars.

The 21-year-old, who is the reigning world, Olympic and European champion on the bars, was performing a move invented by, and named after her.

Soared backwards

The move, involving a backflip from the lower to upper bars saw her fail to complete the move accurately and as she soared backwards, her hands were just agonisingly far from the bar and she was unable to get a grip and fell to the floor.

She duly completed the routine - even making a second successful attempt at the move she had missed - and received a 9.00, but the error left Russia's overall team score in a weaker position.

Shortly afterwards world vault champion Elena Zamolodtchikova fell from the balance beam and received only an 8.862 and Ekaterina Lobazniouk, 17, followed with another fall to score 9.175.

Those errors had all but sealed Russia's fate and the margin between them and the Romanians proved too great to be made up in the floor exercise.

World balance beam runner-up Raducan paced Romania with a stunning 9.837 on the beam and a 9.625 on the vault.

Andreea Isarescu, another 16-year-old, came to the rescue on uneven bars, scoring a team-best 9.687, while Amanar's 9.775 floor score was Romania's best.

Russian Khorkina has five more chances to win gold at the Sydney SuperDome, including Thursday's all-around competition and three apparatus finals - bars, vault and floor.