体坛英语新闻：US favoured to retain team title at Glasgow gymnastics worlds

GLASGOW, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- The United States are tipped to retain their women's team title on Tuesday should they perform as confidently as they did in qualifications.

They topped the team standings in the qualifying as well as the scoreboard for three out of five events -- vault, beam and floor. They collected a massive 236.611 points, more than five clear of second-place Russia.

Undoubtedly Tuesday night's eight-team final is almost sure to consolidate their dominance in the women's events which they have won every major international competition over the last four years.

Resurgent Olympic all-around gold medalist Gabby Douglas did not want to hide their confidence of winning.

"We're all really strong," said Douglas. "We're all really strong. We all have different things, different treasures we can contribute to U.S."

Russia will need to substantially improve their floor performances from qualifications if they hope to challenge the U.S. team for gold. They did better than the U.S. team gymnasts on uneven bars but faltered on floor, where they ranked 11th.

The 2014 bronze medalists Russia will rely mostly on worlds debutante Seda Tutkhalian, her country's top all-arounder in qualifications and 2012 Olympic all-around silver medalist Viktoria Komova.

Sturdy performances on vault and floor boosted Britain to third place in qualifications. They are poised to make history if they can maintain that position and win their first team medal in worlds history.

But the British team will need to withstand 2014 silver medalists China, which qualified fourth after mistakes on their traditionally strongest events, uneven bars and balance beam.

Ye Zhennan, manager of the Chinese team, said they will become more competitive in the finals and make less mistakes.

"We did pretty well in the qualifying in our traditionally weak events of vault and floor. I believe if we try our best we will stand on the podium finally on Tuesday night."