ANAHEIM, Calif. -- These are likely the last world championships in Alexei Nemov's long, illustrious career, and the Russian wasn't about to see them end early.

With the Russians' medal chances seemingly flat on the mat after an inopportune injury to one of his teammates in the first event, the Olympic all-around champion rescued them. Using his spectacular skills and trademark grace, he didn't score lower than a 9.487 in his four events.

By the end of the night, the Russians had moved all the way up to third place. They finished with 223.380 points, behind both Japan (227.046) and Romania (224.770).

Defending world champion Belarus wasn't nearly as fortunate. It struggled after losing a gymnast in the third rotation, and is in seventh place, almost assured of not winning another title. The top eight teams advance to Tuesday's finals, and the Americans, Chinese and Ukraine are still left to compete Sunday.

The top 12 teams qualify for the Athens Olympics.

Of course, it could have been even worse for the Belarussians had Ivan Ivankov, Belarus' top gymnast, not scored a 9.5 on the vault -- an event he hadn't worked on in two years and had no plans to compete in.

"It's not too easy,'' Ivankov said. "But we have goals and dreams, and we can do it.''

The Russians left the competition without granting interviews to reporters. But Nemov's performance spoke volumes.

The meet was only about five minutes old when Russia's Evgeni Krylov fell on his opening tumbling pass on the floor. Krylov crawled off the podium with an Achilles' injury, and couldn't put any weight on his left foot.

While he wasn't Russia's best gymnast, the injury was still a huge blow. Athletes can't be replaced once the competition starts, taking away any strategy the Russians had in their lineup and leaving them no room for mistakes.

In preliminaries, five of the team's six gymnasts compete on each event with the top four scores counting.

The Russians could have forced their leftover gymnast into action, but that's a risk, too. Instead, they chose to just go with four gymnasts on each event, hoping the scores would be good enough.

Nemov made sure they were.

His floor routine was pure beauty. His passes were so huge he could have easily thrown another flip or twist in them. When he twirled around the floor while balancing only on his hands, he did it as easily as if there were cables supporting him. He scored a 9.537, one of the highest of the night.

He was solid on vault and parallel bars, too. But he saved his best for the last routine of the night: the high bar. Nemov is the Olympic gold medalist in the event, and he seems to have gotten even better since Sydney.

Knowing he couldn't afford even the slightest slip or fall, Nemov still came up with a daring routine that was right on.

He did a total of six release moves, catching the bar each time as if his hands had glue on them. He did four in a row at one point, tossing himself up and back over the bar three times, then flipping backward and twisting before grabbing the bar one last time.

The crowd gasped, knowing it was seeing something truly spectacular. When he finished, he pumped his fist and then turn turned to the crowd, opening his mouth in a roar. As the audience cheered, "Sexy Alexei'' struck a champion's pose.

His score of 9.775 was more than enough to secure third place for the Russians, and will likely advance them to the team finals.

Once there, Russia's medal hopes will be almost as golden as they were when the meet began. Not only do scores start over, but the scoring format changes. Instead of competing five gymnasts and counting the top four scores, three gymnasts do each apparatus and all scores count. While that leaves no room for error, it's a boon for shorthanded teams.

But there will be strong competition. Japan has been waiting three years for a chance at a medal since missing the bronze by less than 0.20 points in Sydney. The Japanese skipped the 2001 worlds because of post-Sept. 11 security concerns.

"I wouldn't say we did our best, but we did a really good job,'' said Japan's Akihiro Kasamatsu, one of only two members left from the 2000 Olympic team that finished less than 0.20 points behind Russia.

While the Japanese will stay around for the finals, Belarus is just hanging on, hoping for a top-12 finish and a spot in the Olympics.

"We didn't plan it like this,'' Ivankov said. "But it happens.''