Yang Wei has built up an aura of invincibility but it will count for nothing if he does not win the all-around Olympic gold medal in front of his home fans at next month's Beijing Games.
Yang Wei of China performs on the pommel horse during the men's individual all-around final at the 40th World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart in 2007. [Agencies] |
Since a new scoring system was introduced in 2006 following a spate of judging scandals at the Athens Games, Yang has remained undefeated in the all-around on the world stage.
Yang could have prevented one of the biggest controversies in Athens had he not lost his grip on the horizontal bar during the last rotation of the men's all-around final.
He had led the field of 24 competitors before a crashed landing sparked a chain of events that allowed Paul Hamm to scoop the gold medal due to a judging error. The American was then drawn into a legal wrangle to be allowed to keep his prize.
Fast forward four years and Yang, now 28, is again the favorite for the individual crown and this is likely to be his last chance to become only the second Chinese man to win the most coveted individual prize in gymnastics.
"To compete on home turf, you surely have great pressure, and I think I can turn the pressure into motivation," said Yang, who owns seven world titles and was part of the men's team that triumphed in Sydney in 2000.
Hamm had to rely on a Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling to ensure he and not South Korea's Yang Tae-young was the winner of the disputed medal in 2004.
The American has not competed internationally since his Olympic ordeal and suffered a serious setback two months ago when he broke a metacarpal in his right hand. He had surgery to insert a plate and nine screws to hasten the healing.
The 25-year-old proved his fitness only last weekend and wasted little time in declaring: "I guess Yang Wei should be a little worried, too. He was probably counting on me being out."
Hiroyuki Tomita, a member of the gold-medal-winning Japanese team in 2004 and world all-around champion in 2005, and German dynamo Fabian Hambuechen will also fancy their chances.
But recent form suggests the Chinese national anthem "March of the Volunteers" will become a familiar sound in the National Indoor Stadium during the nine-day gymnastics program in which 14 titles will be up for grabs.