AARHUS, Denmark — The only team with an outside chance to topple the Americans did just that.
The Chinese women pulled off a stunner Wednesday, getting a second straight great performance from Zhang Nan and Pang Panpan to win their first world gymnastics title and give their country a sweep of the team gold.
The men won Tuesday. Not a bad way to set the stage with 22 months until the Olympics in Beijing.
Although the men's win could have been expected, this one certainly wasn't.
"Before the games, we knew there was a little gap between the Chinese team and the Americans," said Chinese vault and floor specialist Cheng Fei, who hit on both events in finals. "It makes it so we could come in with no pressure, and we could give a top performance."
The Americans brought with them a stack of medals from last year's individual worlds to Denmark. Even with national champion Nastia Liukin limited to one event, they crushed everyone — including China — in preliminaries.
Finals were expected to be more of an exhibition than a competition.
But in the finals, every score counts, unlike preliminaries where the worst score is discarded. Every mistake counts, too, and the Americans made too many.
They had falls on two of their 12 routines, a bad break on another and finished with 181.35 points, 0.85 fewer than the Chinese. Russia, rebuilding after winning bronze in Athens, finished third.
"All I can say is there were two mistakes, which we were not counting on," said Martha Karolyi, America's national team coordinator. "Totally, totally unexpected."
The surprises started early — in fact, on the first routine of the day — when Jana Bieger barely kept herself from falling on her backside on the vault landing, earning a score of 13.95.
Then came an even bigger stunner, when defending all-around champion Chellsie Memmel couldn't make the grab on a release move on the uneven bars. She made a thump when she hit the mat, drowned out milliseconds later by a huge gasp from the crowd.
Indeed, nobody expected this.
"I think I was a little surprised," Karolyi said. "China was consistent tonight, and I thought they deserved to win. But they didn't beat us. We beat ourselves."
Either way, what a great day for the Chinese, who finished seventh at the Athens Olympics. They haven't won a medal at worlds since 1999. In 2003, they infamously gave away the bronze when an athlete was penalized for warming up for her beam routine on the podium near the beam, which wasn't allowed.
There were no such mistakes this time. In fact, not many mistakes at all.
"This victory has already passed," Zhang said. "Next time, we start again at zero. At the Olympic Games, we will have the same competition."
Almost certainly, though, their American competition won't look the same. Somewhat surprisingly, Karolyi left Ashley Priess and national runner-up Natasha Kelley on the sideline for the entire competition, the result of their falls off the beam in preliminaries. They'll have some proving to do between now and 2008.
Could they have made a difference? Who knows. All three Americans stayed on the beam this time, but their scores were average. Memmel did a great job to keep from falling off after one foot ricocheted off after a flip. Still, it knocked her down to 15.225, giving up precious ground on a night when every tenth of a point counted.
Karolyi said the lineup was never a question in her mind.
"We met about it. We discussed it. Absolutely everybody agreed with the decision," she said.
The Chinese women took the lead into their last event, the floor, and started wrapping things up when Pang scored a 15.425 on a sassy little number that was technically strong and full of pizazz — ending when she brought her hand to her cheek and pushed her head to an angle to smile to the crowd.
There's no doubt, the Chinese were having more fun at every spot in the gym. When their floor set was over, they already were celebrating, hugging and high-fiving, even though the Americans still had to go.
Alicia Sacramone, the defending world champ, did her usual best — another head-turning number that will be her last on the floor this week due to a judging decision in qualifying that knocked her out of event finals.
Memmel was good on floor, too. Maybe on Thursday, when she competes in the all-around, that set will mean something. In this meet, it was already too late.
"I was glad I stayed on beam when my foot slipped. I came back with a really strong floor routine, and I was happy with that," Memmel said. "I was just a little bit off tonight."