Other Sport News

China strengthen hold on medals table (Roundup)

By Peter Auf Der Heyde Dec 6, 2006, 22:44 GMT

Doha, Qatar - China seem well on course to beating the 150 Asian Games gold medals they achieved in Busan four years ago and on Wednesday added another 16 golds to their ever-increasing tally.

They shared the six swimming gold medals with Japan, with Chinese winners being Chen Zuo with a new Asian record in the men's 100 metre freestyle, Xu Yanwei in the women's 100m freestyle and Qi Hui in the women's 200m.

For Japan Sano Hosokawa won the men's 200m individual medley, Reiko Nakamura won the women's 100m backstroke and Yurie Yano got gold in the women's 800m freestyle.

In gymnastics they won three gold medals in five events, with Yang Wei winning the men's parallel bar (he shared the gold with South Korea's Kim Dae Eun), while Zhang Nan took the women's beam and Cheng Fei the women's floor.

Also winning gold in the gymnastics was Japan's Hisashi Mizutori in the men's horizontal bar and Ri Se Gwang from North Korea who won the men's vault.

In weightlifting Mu Shuangshuang set up a new world record in the snatch of the +75kg division by lifting 139kg. She won the gold from South Korean Jang Mi Ran and Thailand's Annipa Moontar.

It was eighth world record at the Games, with all but one coming in weightlifting.

Mu, who was beaten by Jang in the last two world championships, said that she did not expect to win.

'I felt a lot of pressure to win gold because I am the only Chinese woman in the category. I was very worried about not winning gold for China,' she said.

Other weightlifting golds on the day went to Iran, for whom Hossein Reza Zadeh won the men's 105+ division with Qatar's Jaber Salem taking the silver and Andrey Martemyanov from Uzbekistan getting the bronze.

Syria's Ahed Joughili took the men's 105kg with Mahammad Aljuaifri from Iraq finishing second and Bakhyt Akhmetov third.

It was not the only good news for Iraq on the day as their football team also sneaked into the quarter-finals as one of the two best second-placed teams after a 4-0 victory against Malaysia.

Iraqi coach Yahya Manhel said he hoped that the Iraqi people would rejoice at the news.

'Football is the biggest sport in Iraq. Men, women and children all love it. There are many things which Iraqis disagree about, but sport unites them,' he said.

Japan though was less fortunate as a 2-1 defeat against North Korea saw the silver medallists from Busan being knocked out.

China continued to dominate the shooting and picked up five of the day's six gold medals.

In the men's 10-metres running target Gan Lin won ahead of Kazakhstan's Bakhtiyar Ibrayev and Andrey Gurov. As Gan was the only Chinese shooter competing, his result did not count towards the team event, which Kazakhstan won ahead of Qatar and Vietnam.

Liu Zhongsheng took the gold in the men's 25m rapid fire pistol with his teammate Zhang Penghui finishing second. India's Vijay Kumar won the bronze.

China took the gold in the team event from Japan and Kazakhstan.

The 23-year-old Olympic bronze medallist Wang Chengyi proved too strong for Kazakhstan veteran Olga Dovgun in the women's 50m rifle event. The bronze went to Na Yoon Kyung of South Korea.

Wang added the gold in the team event to her tally, while South Korea won the silver from Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan strengthened their hold on fourth position in the medals standings behind China, Japan and South Korea with another gold in the men's cycling team trial race, beating Iran and Japan into second and third place.

The victory took their gold tally to 10 - seven more than fifth- placed North Korea.

Cyclist Andrey Mizurov, who won a gold in the time trial at the 1994 Asian Games and took gold again this time around, said that they had not changed their style.

'We have a Russian speciality - cycling. As we were under the USSR, so we are the same today. We are strong in team time trial.

'This is a plus for our country,' he said.

Wednesday also saw the first rowing medals being awarded with Uzbekistan and China sharing the honours with two gold medals each. Japan won one in the men's lightweight double sculls.

Uzbekistan took the gold in the men's double sculls and the women's lightweight double sculls, while China was victorious in the women's four and the women's double sculls.

Other gold medal winners on the day were China in the men's snooker team event, India who won in Kabaddi, Thailand in the men's sepaktakraw team event, while Vietnam got the women's gold.

Taiwan won the men's and women's singles in soft tennis, while Hong Kong stunned China in the final of the men's doubles table tennis. China though gained some revenge in the women's doubles where they beat Hong Kong in the final to take the gold.

The Asian Games run from December 1 - 15 and feature 424 medal events in 39 sports.