BALANCE BEAM	Nat	pts.
	FINAL
1	ESHOVA, Ludmilla	RUS	9,562
2	KHORKINA, Svetlana	RUS	9,262
3	van de LEUR, Verona	NED	9,187
4	COLOMBO, Ilaria	ITA	9,100
5	HARMES, Suzanne	NED	8,850
6	REGEASE, Delphine	FRA	8,650
7	TWEDDLE, Elizabeth	GBR	8,550
8	GOMEZ, Elena	ESP	8,525
(E1)	Gargano, M.Teresa	ITA
(E2)	Jarotska, Irina	UKR

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Ludmilla Eshova

Beam brought a long awaited gold for Russia’s Lyudmila Yezhova. Last up, she competed her difficult routine – Onodi- front aerial-side somi- calmly and with confidence before breaking into a delighted smile after her 2 ½ twist dismount. Off the podium, she was greeted with a huge hug from >>Svetlana Khorkina. Khorkina navigated her mount sequence RO- full-twisting ff –ff- layout well for second place. 
>>Verona van de Leur brought home another medal for her routine that included a RO- layout mount and finished with a 2 ½ twist. 
>> Ilaria Colombo wobbled on her ff-layout but was solid elsewhere for fourth. 
>> Suzanne Harmes had a big wobble on her full-twisting tuck jump. 
>> Delphine Regease posted the lowest start value of the final – 9,3 and wobbled on her full-twisting ff. Fresh off her bars medal, 
>> Beth Tweddle skidded along the beam after a ff to layout to two feet but stayed on.
>> Elena Gomez nearly fell on her RO-layout mount and had to put her hand on the beam

Nora Schuler/E.Herholz