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ASSOCIATED PRESS
TIANJIN (CHINA), OCT 14: Romanian gymnast Maria Olaru twisted her way through superior vaults on her final routine today and defeated Ukraine's Viktoria Karpenko for the world women's all-round title.
Russia's Elena Zamolodchikova also made no mistakes in her final routine, in the floor exercises, and edged teammate Elena Produnova for the bronze medal.
Romanian Andreea Raducan, whose 9.837 points in floor exercise was the outstanding performance of the day, finished fifth, ahead of China's Dong Fangxiao and Huang Mandan, and American Elise Ray.
Olaru and Karpenko went into their last of the four events, the vault, with Karpenko leading 29.212 points to 29.149.
After Karpenko scored 9.493 points, the 17-year-old Olaru topped that with 9.625 -- the second-best vault of the day -- and took the gold 38.774 points to 38.705. Olaru also had the second-best floor exercise -- 9.825 -- plus 9.737 on the balance beam and 9.587 points on the uneven bars.
``I don't believe it,'' Olaru said. ``Are you sure I amthe world champion.'' She won, she said, because, ``I was simply more stable''.
Newcomers Olaru and the 16-year-old Raducan had been the top two scorers in qualifying and the team finals, where Romania won its fourth consecutive world team title.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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