China gymnastics head coach Huang Yubin said on Tuesday that they had not considered the newly withdrawn US gymnast Paul Hamm as a major contender in the Beijing Olympics.
The reigning men's all-around Olympic champion was forced to withdraw from the US Olympic team on Monday, failing to recover in time from a hand injury sustained in May.
"I'm not surprised," said Huang, "We know he's injured. It would be very tough for a gymnast to recover in such a short time."
"We feel sorry for him. It'll be painful for any athlete who has to quit the Olympics. But we will not consider his exit an advantage for us for neither he nor the United States team are our men's major contenders."
"Our biggest opponents are still Japan," he added.
In the Athens Games, Japan won the most coveted team's title and the silver medal went to the Americans while pre-Games favorite China finished only fifth after a row of big mistakes.
The hosts are looking to a strong comeback on home turf with multiple world champion Yang Wei determined to win his first men's all-around Olympic title that he missed four years ago.
China team's spokesman Zhang Peiwen thought that Yang only needs to beat himself in Beijing.
"Yang was unlucky in Athens but I think he will not make the same mistake this time," he said.
"He's in great form and has been the best gymnast in the world for the past two years."
In a dramatic men's all-around final in Athens, Yang led the field after four apparatus but suddenly crashed out of medal contention with a fall from the high bar.
Yang finished seventh and Hamm was handed a lucky victory as a judge's miscalculation denied the gold medal to South Korean Yang Tae-young, who ranked third after being wrongly docked points.
Hamm, returning from more than two years off after Athens, broke the fourth metacarpal in his right hand at the United States championships. He subsequently had surgery but was still named in the US Olympic lineup earlier this month, saying that he felt 90 percent healthy.
He even went as far as to warn Yang to be cautious.
"They should be a little worried, I guess also Yang Wei should be a little worried, too. He's probably counting on me being out," Hamm said on July 19 at a training camp.
But Zhang said the team and Yang are not worried.
"We saw the video of Paul's performance in the US championship. Paul's good considering his two years off, but even if he competes, I don't think he can be compared with Yang in A score of difficulty.
"Maybe he is yet to adjust himself to the new scoring system," he said.
In 2006, the former perfect ten gave way to an open-ended scoring system which allows top gymnasts to increase their starting difficulty value as high as they can.
The change was inspired in large part by Hamm's title controversy during the 2004 Athens Games.
(Xinhua News Agency July 30, 2008)