Japan vaults into first

The competition goes down to the final vault and Japan sticks it

A final turn on the vault proved to be the boost Japan needed to leapfrog Canada and the United States and capture the men's team gold in the Pacific Alliance Gymnastics Championships last night at Blaisdell Arena.

Japan was third, heading into the final rotation, trailing first-place Canada by 4.85 points. It ended the meet by turning in a sensational series of vaults to complete the stunning comeback as the top three teams finished within 0.8 points of each other.

Japan finished with 268.8 points. Canada led for the first five rotations and won the silver with 268.6.

China, which preceded Japan on the vault, also excelled on the apparatus to capture the team bronze at 268 points, and the top two spots in the all-around.

China's Lu Bo, the silver medalist at the 2004 Pacific Alliance meet, turned in the highest score of the night with a 16.6 (6.8 difficulty, 9.8 execution) on the vault to jump from fourth to first in the individual all-around with 91.05 points.

Bo, speaking through a translator, expressed surprise at reaching the top of the medal stand.

His teammate, 2001 world champion Feng Jeng, earned the silver with 90.45 points; 16.15 coming on his final vault.

Canada's Nathan Gafuik topped the all-around standings most of the night and claimed the bronze.

The defending champion United States team recovered from a shaky start on the pommel horse to move into second place midway through the competition.

The Americans closed to within 1.4 points of the lead after five rotations, but the strong finishes by Japan and China knocked them out of the medals.

"They got unbelievable vaults, that's probably the best event to end on," said U.S veteran Brett McClure. "You're going to score two points higher than everybody else anyway. We knew that going into the last event."

McClure was the top American finisher, placing sixth with 89.25 points.

"We couldn't put one event together as a team," McClure said. "We never could get all three guys to hit great routines on one event. That's something we're going to have to learn from. The potential's there."

The vault proved to be a gold mine of points last night, providing the highest scores of the event.

Canada started on the vault, topping 16 points on all three of its attempts to take a lead it would not relinquish until the end of the night.

The Canadians stretched their advantage on the parallel bars led by Grant Golding's 15.45. The U.S. jumped from sixth to third with a solid performance on the still rings, and passed Japan into second place on the vault.

Needing to make a move on the horizontal bar, the Americans sliced into Canada's lead heading into the sixth and final rotation. Guillermo Alvarez led off with a 14.5 for the Americans, and David Durante added a 15.2 to jump from fifth to second in the all-around. McClure moved up into third with a 14.95.

"We were in a good position to kind of make a move when we got to the high bar," said Durante, who placed seventh. "I thought my routine could really count for the team."

While Canada and the U.S. turned in solid, if not spectacular, performances on the rings and floor exercise, Japan and China were busy vaulting up the standings.

Fourth-place finisher Takehito Mori scored a 16.5 to lead the Japanese. Yosuke Hoshi had a 16.2, and Makoto Okiguchi (15.9) and Hidetoshi Mizutori (15.35) also scored well.

The championships conclude tonight with the men's and women's event finals starting at 7.