Japan's start was exellent (maybe much better than they expected).  A new face in the big international competition, Mizutori, stuck her landing on side horse vault and gave heart to the others on the team. However, on the next event, uneven bars, the first competitor, Takenaka, fell,  and it influenced to Nakase and Sahara. If someone fell on uneven bars or beam, it would affect their performance.Even though this young team had to change its routines to meet the requirements of the new Code of Points, the gymnasts need to have mental training for  the team competition. Considering that they lost their Olympic team berth at two Worlds with a very poor performance like today's, they  know what they need.

As for  adopting the new Code of Points, China easily got four gymnasts with 10 start value on beam. Their performances included a standing back somersault in  combination, which has been raised in value  from B to C, and was in the compulsory in the Chinese Junior  competition. Moreover, front aerial, their favorite skill, also has been raised in value  from C to D. Their skills on beam basically were good enough for the new code. They didn't bring a 10 start value on uneven bars today, but their execution was simply great.  Japan saw its own problems before the adoption to the new code in the Chinese performance.

Report by rotation

Subdivision 1

Australia  participating in the open category had to compete against  Kazakhstan, China and an individual from Hong Kong  in the first session, and that would be its disadvantage for the unofficial second place, while Japan and Korea competed in the next session.  They started from vault,  which had dropped them from the  team final at Sydney Games.  Their best score was 8.95 from Croak.  (She performed a beautiful Hristakieva).  They have a long way to go on this event.
On uneven bars, Hew showed an EL-grip Endo and scored 8.8.  Zarnay satisfied the special requiments of "minmum B skill on the low bar" with a  one foot sole circle (C), and stuck her arabian double.  Croak, in contrast, missed the same dismount. Dunn, on her fovorite event, did not have a good day.  After a great Comanaeci sault, she missed her grasp after a full twist from inverted giant and fell.  It looked like she might have been hurt....

Barbach and Dunn showed RO-Onodi mount (Barabach, however,  fell.) on beam.  Dunn showed a cartwheel to 1/4 twist-ff-double tuck, too. Croak got 0.1 deduction for being  over time.

On floor, their performance was beautiful.  However, they lacked  difficulty in their tumbling passes, and need to improve the  level of their dance elements. Dunn's performance to "Karinka" was a crowd favorite. 

The last performer, Croak, used the same music as the former Soviet gymnast, Baraksanova ('85 Worlds member), and her beautiful choreography resembled  Baraksanova.  She mouted with a two and a half twist to punch front, and continued with triple twist and  double twisting tucked jump.  Her 9.2 was the only score over 9 for the Australian team. 

At this time, even though they couldn't send their best gymnast to Japan, they seemed to suffer from the new code. Eventually, they were in  third place after Japan (since their results were not officially recorded, they got  souvenirs insted of medals.)

Two gymnasts from Kazakhstan were in poor shape.  The veteran, Yevdokimova, missed her invention, "Yevdokimova" vault (front handspring layout front), but showed a front somi to triple twist on floor and will go to the apparatus finals.

Subdivision 1

Rotation 1

Japan started their first event, vault, with MIzutori's very good layout tsukahara-full. Mizutori  stuck her landing.  This was her debut on the international scene. Nakase, Sahara, and Takenaka nearly stuck their landings, too.  Their four best scores were all 9 or higher.  Korea showed some piked double backs on floor but these didn't make their start values high enough.  China amazed the audience from their first performer, Bai Chunyue, who showed a  layout full-in.  Huang Mandan missed her full-in dismount, and Qi linzi fell on her piked Jaeger, but the World Cup Champion,  Ling Jie showed a great inverted giant-one and a half twist to giant. She still cannot get a 10 start value and only got a  9.6.  However, her excellent execution was good enough to score 9.4.

1. China 36.550
2. Japan 36.100
3. Korea 32.875
(EO)Australia 35.300 *EO=Exhibition Only

Rotation 2

The lead-off performer, Takenaka, fell on toe-on hecht to high bar, a skill in the requirements of the new code (minimum B value change from low bar to to high bar.). Nakase broke her rhythm after Park Salto and fell.  Sahara, the crowd favorite in her hometown Osaka, missed her trademark triple twisting back somersault dismount.  Fujiwara and Manabe managed somehow to get through their routines.

Korea struggled on vault, too, while Chinese Taipei was great with  beautiful performances on floor.

China was untouchable on beam.  The start value of the top four was 10, even though Ling Jie and Qi Linqi had  small balance checks. Bai Chunyue and Dong Fangxiao hit their routines, and scored 9.825 and 9.775 respectively.  All of them included ring jump, front aerial and standing back sommie tucked in their routines.  The skills were all C-skills or higher, and this made it easier to get bonus points for connections. 

1. China 75.300
2. Japan 70.500
3. Korea 67.050
(EO)Australia 70.450

Rotation 3

Japan had to count falls by Nakase, Takenaka and Fujiwara.  Nakase and Takenaka missed on both Uneven Bars and Beam.  They will need to work hard to avoid repeating this sort of mistake.  Sahara failed to connect some skills to get a bonus, but showed a great triple twisting back sommie dismount.  Manabe was solid on this event, too.

The Koreans were far from their best, and had some falls.  The last performer, Park Mi-Ra,  injured her ankle and withdrew from the next event.

China showed three full-in's from Liu Wei, Bai Chunyue, and Dong Fangxiao on floor.  Dong's routine included arabian double front sommie mount, whipover immediate triple twist, and a nice jump combination to get a bonus. Dong and some other gymnasts dismounted with double twists. They  seemed to keep their higher level skills in reserve. 

1. China 112.525
2. Japan 104.825
3. Korea 98.775
(EO)Australia 103.850

Rotation 4

Japan was strong on floor. The Japanese gymnasts'  tumpling passes were better than those of the Chinese.  The consistant Manabe showed an amazing double layout back sommie to punch front.  Sahara did a piked full-in and whipover  to triple twisting back sommie.  Takenaka mouted with full-in and continued to arabian double.

The Japanese gymnasts need to learn dance elements of high difficulty to make their start value higher.

Korea couldn't perform well on beam or on uneven bars.

China seemed to be still weak on vault. Their best performance was Dong's double twisting layout Yurchenko. However, their performance was good enough to get the title.

1. China 149.250
2. Japan 140.800
3. Korea 130.875
(EO)Australia 138.675