♦   Initional Situation Today ...
On Tuesday, October 7, the fifth day of competition in Nanning China of the 45^th Men's Worlds of Artistic Gymnastics 2014" falls the highly anticipated first decision in the Team Final, the top 8 teams: It all boils down to the fact that again the now are already almost "eternal" duel for Gold between China and Japan. Only once, most recently at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Japan was last on the top podium. Since the 39^th World Championships in 2006 in Aarhus (- then before Russia and Japan) but the Chinese are absolute champions in all subsequent Olympic Games (Beijing 2008, London 2012) and between  in all four world championships in the last decade - and always ahead of Japan, which ranked second. So it seems go out also today in Nanning during the recent "Chinese home game"  or not ...?

And again, CHINA is ahead of Japan and the United States ahead of the UK, the latter will probably fight again for bronze.
The USA team, the known way everything always align very consistently successful Olympic presence, was 10 years before silver medalist behind China at the Olympics 2004 (Athens) and took bronze behind China and Japan in 2008 (Beijing). Four years later, however, made ​​the emerging European Gymnastics Nation UK slump to the Worlds 2011 in Tokyo (- only 10th place) with the sensational winning the bronze medal up for it - the United States was behind the Ukraine in 2012  on fifth in London without ma medal. In the preliminaries here in Nanning, the US-Boys had slightly nose against the British (4) ...
RUSSIA is arranged as initially behind the quartet on a rank 5. His last biggest triumph is, however, already eight years back: At the Worlds in Aarhus (2006), the Russians wereat  last Vice-World Champion behind China and ahead of Japan. What followed later were all sixth places, only in 2011 in Tokyo as a fourth they were again close to a medal on it - though with considerable points behind the medal trio China, Japan, USA.

And Germany ...? The biggest success was in the second half of the first decade of the new millennium:
From an eighth place at the Olympics 2004, then the Olympic course work "the young guns" like Hambuechen, Boy, and later Nguyen & Co., high above on 7^th place (2006),  to bronze in 2007 at the World Championships in Stuttgart, fourth in Beijing 2008 (- behind CHN, JPN, USA),and  back to WCh Bronzeagain in  2010 (Rotterdam) - in front of  the USA. But since then carried steady downturn: Rank 6 in 2011 Worlds in Tokyo and 7^th at Olympics (2012) failure by the men to long-running Hambuechen, which already targeted his fourth Olympic Games, now a renewed upswing ...? Currently missing but some performers, such as Marcel Nguyen, Matthias Fahrig and Sebastian Krimmer fierce! Young people are probably here (Dauser, Herder, Weinert) to beat up quite well in Nanning. What is missing are a few "-Jet", which is early even at higher contents, dare difficulties to present it on the international stages successfully.
That's why the motto of today's head coach Andreas Hirsch is exactly the right:
"Folks, today we risk 'once something ...!"
It will be interesting how this proceeds, not only with regard to the final mode - all three exercises go without string value into the score - and the team's earnings, but also with regard to the individual gymnasts: Not any German is in an apparatus finals, but today they could show, what they can: One of the world's best on the high bar, Hambuechen, but also the other world-class man on the same apparatus, Andreas Bretschneider, who even today will venture a > WORLD PREMIERE in the airspace of China  ...

Tough Battle for Bronze : USA vs. GREAT BRITAIN
Great Britain men’s gymnastics team - Max Whitlock, Kristian Thomas, Dan Keatings, Dan Purvis, Nile Wilson and Courtney Tulloch -have taken historic 4th place at the end -  Britain’s greatest ever result.
The team were narrowly beaten to the medals in a hugely tense finale to the competition as USA took bronze with a total of 270.369 to Britain’s 269.170.
The British team had qualified in to the final in 4th place with the best ever team final result prior to this event 7th , although they did of course take Olympic team bronze in 2012.
For a long time the team were amongst the medals and despite the historic result team captain Kristian Thomas demonstrated the  ambition in the team saying afterwards “We put in everything and just came up a little but short of the medals today, it’s disappointing but that just shows how high our aims are. We know that this is just the first step though, we have an incredible team with a great mix of experience and the young guys who have been exceptional, and it is a great base to work from on our road to the Rio Olympics.”
Max Whitlock added “Today was great, as a team we were so well prepared and so focussed and everyone did their job out there, we can be very proud as a team of what we’ve achieved.  Again we have shown just how good Great Britain are at gymnastics.”

The format of the final meant that three of the six strong team competed on each of the six apparatus with every score counting to the final total.

The team couldn’t have got off to a better start as they began on the
- Pommel horse: Daniel Purvis our top scorer in the all-around event in qualification proved his consistency to get the event underway before Olympic bronze medallist Max Whitlock (15.516) and Commonwealth champion Daniel Keatings (15.633) both performed excellent world-class routines .
- On rings Courtney Tulloch showed why he has made the individual final in that event again putting in a display of immense strength to top score (14.966) with Nile Wilson and Max also producing error free routines.
- Vault saw Kristian Thomas join the competition and he produced a superb double piked vault for GB’s top score of 15.491, Max again superb for 15.366 and Nile also landing cleanly. At the half way point that placed Britain in the silver medal position thanks to clean performances all round.
- On parallel bars Daniel Purvis was again superbly controlled scoring 15.200 to begin, with Nile Wilson showing no signs of nerves on his World Championships debut to follow suit and Dan Keatings battling thought his performance to keep GB on track. The pressure was on going in to
- high bar as China had crept ahead in the scores, Max Whitlock, Kristian Thomas and Nile Wilson soaked up the atmosphere and performed, all executing clean routines to keep the team in the medal hunt. Ending on floor with the tension in the air palpable the gymnasts again excelled, Kristian Thomas leading the way with a stylish display scoring 15.233 with Dan Purvis following suit for 15.100 and Max Whitlock ending with a routine packed with difficult twisting tumbles for 15.400 points giving the team a total of 269.170 and 4th place.
* source: British Gymnastics