By Paul Osborne 

The United States have defended their team title at the Artistics Gymnastics World Championships ©Getty ImagesThe United States have easily defended their women's team title at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships following a dominating performance at the Guangxi Sports Centre Gymnasium in Nanning.

The London 2012 Olympic champions were formidable in qualification and continued this form through to today's final where they blew away nearest rivals China by a huge margin of 6.693 points.

Despite a couple of wobbles on the beam, the three-time champions rarely looked under threat atop the leaderboard as their precision and power place them ahead of the field from the first rotation.

The team took top position on three of the four apparatus to finish with a total score of 179.280.

Such was their dominance that defending all-around world champion and two-time national champion Simone Biles needed just 8.682 points on her floor routine to secure the gold medal for the United States.

She scored 15.375, however.

"Overall, I think today went really well for every single girl that competed, especially for Team USA," Biles said.

"We had a couple mistakes...yeah, me, I did, but other than that, we did pretty good."

The United States' dominance was such that Simone Biles needed just 8.682 points on the floor exercise to secure her nation the gold ©Getty ImagesThe United States' dominance was such that Simone Biles needed just 8.682 points on the floor exercise to secure her nation the gold ©Getty Images


Hosts China rallied after a mediocre performance on the uneven bars to secure silver.

Their top score on the balance beam saw them leap into second, a position they would hold onto following a tense battle for their remaining medals.

Russian medal hopes seemed to fade early on in the final when Ekaterina Kramarenko fell on balance beam and Alla Sosnitskaya fell to her hands on the floor exercise.

They pulled from fifth to third place on vault in the last rotation, however, owing to assertive performances by veterans Tatiana Nabieva and Aliya Mustafina.

This pushed Romania outside of the medals as they were left to settle for fourth, ahead of Italy, Great Britain, Australia and Japan.

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