Pease spins to floor gold as US tops gymnastics medal table
American teenagers Claire Pease and Reese Esponda reaped the reward of high-difficulty routines to take the top two places in the women's floor excercise Sunday on the final day of the World Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam. Their medals allowed the United States, who collected eight medals, three of them gold, to edge China for the top spot in the medal count. China finished with seven medals including three golds, the last of them earlier Sunday when Zou Jingyuan continued his domination of the men's parallel bars. In the women's floor event, the 17-year-old Pease scored 13.866. Esponda, also 17, was second 13.566, 0.010 off French 16-year-old Maiana Prat and Britain's Abigail Martin, the oldest of the quartet at 18, on a tiebreak. Prat, who had the lowest degree of difficulty, was awarded bronze because her execution score was better than Martin's. The American women put on a…
