BEIJING (AP) - Nastia Liukin is bringing the toughest uneven bars routine in the world, and Shawn Johnson will be strutting some of the strongest stuff on vault, floor and balance beam. When it comes to sauce and sass, no one comes close to Alicia Sacramone.

C'mon, China, think you can top that?

Actually, yes.

For every dazzling routine the Americans throw out there in Wednesday's gymnastics team final, the Chinese can come right back with one of their own. And then some, in some cases.

Three years in the making, the showdown between China and the United States is finally here and it's as good as advertised. The world's two powerhouses, going one after another in the same rotation, one last meet to show, once and for all, who really is the best of the best.

"The big competition is coming up," said Liang Chow, who coaches Johnson and is the U.S. coach. "I believe it will be a very tough competition. We're up for it."

Since faltering at the Athens Olympics, the Americans have dominated gymnastics. They're the reigning world champs, and have two of the last three all-around winners (Johnson and Chellsie Memmel). They've won a whopping 21 world medals since 2005, eight of them gold. In Sunday's preliminaries, Johnson and Liukin had the top overall scores.

But China has been coming on strong. When the Americans had a couple of untimely injuries in 2006, it was China that took advantage to win its first world title. Last year, the Chinese were the runners-up. They've loaded their routines with ridiculous amounts of difficulty, and have a seemingly endless lineup of phenoms, one more spectacular than the other.

"China and the U.S. are the class of the world," Britain's Beth Tweddle said. "They are the top two, and they're sure to fight it out for most of the gold medals."

Try separating these two teams, and you'll need a bunch of decimal points to get it done.

The Chinese finished prelims almost 1½ points ahead of the Americans. Scores are tossed out for the finals, and the format becomes the unforgiving three-up, three-count. Translation: Put three gymnasts up on each event, count all three scores. Fall or make a major mistake, and the gold medal's gone. Mess up twice, and all you're taking home is the souvenir swag.

So China has the edge, right?

Not exactly.

Liukin, a world champ on uneven bars, wound up flat on her back on her dismount, costing her at least a half-point in her execution score. Memmel, also a bars world champion, fell during her routine, an automatic eight-tenths deduction. Sacramone went so far out of bounds on floor - where she's a world champ - she was practically off the carpet. That's another five-tenths.

"I paid the price," Sacramone said.

Erase any of those errors, and the Americans HAVE to be ahead of the Chinese.