Yang Wei clapped as he walked past the vault judges, pumped his fists at the crowd and flashed a thumbs-up for the cameras. He even exchanged high-fives with the competition.

　　Denied in Sydney and disappointed in Athens, he is finally an Olympic champion after winning the men’s all-around Thursday. It wasn’t close, either. Yang finished with 94.575 points, nearly three points ahead of Japan’s Kohei Uchimura. Benoit Caranobe of France won the bronze.

　　With every day bringing another gold medal, gymnastics is fast becoming China’s domain at the Beijing Olympics. And no one is a bigger star than Yang.

　　After eight years of waiting, he’s certainly earned it.

　　He didn’t even bother waiting for his marks on high bar, his final event, before taking a curtain call, leaping onto the podium and thrusting his fists in the air while the crowd went crazy. His coach gave him a Chinese flag, and he held it out with pride. Judges took what seemed like forever to post his marks, but that only gave Yang more time to soak it all in.

　　As the adoring crowd chanted “Yang Wei! Yang Wei” he pounded his chest with his fist. When his final mark finally did go up, the crowd went wild and Yang wanted more, cupping his hands to his ears and asking for them to pump up the volume. They did, of course, cheering lustily for the man who could rank right up there with Yao Ming and Liu Xiang in star power. The only difference right now is that Yang’s got two gold medals and the other two are still waiting.

　　Yang was dismissively referred to as “the silver collector” after he finished second to Alexei Nemov at the Sydney Olympics and second to American Paul Hamm at the 2003 world championships. The gold was his for the taking in Athens when Hamm fell midway through the meet, but Yang couldn’t close the deal. He fell on high bar, and dropped all the way to seventh.

　　No one has been better the last two years. Not even close.