By Peter Auf der Heyde Dec 8, 2006, 20:41 GMT
Doha, Qatar - Friday saw the hosts Qatar finally win their first gold medal at the 15th Asian Games, it saw a Kenyan one-two in the steeplechase and it saw China close in on the 100 gold medal mark.
At the end of the day, China was just five medals short of breaking the 100 gold medal barrier and should comfortably achieve that on Saturday. Their closest rivals in the medals table remains Japan, who have 31 gold medals.
In the early session there was joy - albeit dampened by the tragic death on Thursday of South Korean rider Kim Hyung Chil - for the hosts as they took the gold medal for the team eventing equestrian competition.
Abdulla Ali Abdulla al-Ejail added the silver medal for the individual event behind Japan's Yoshiaki Oiwa. He said: 'The team did their best. We came to this competition to win the gold medal and it's a huge achievement.'
On the shooting range the day belonged to India and more particularly to Jaspal Rana, who equalled the world record with his winning score of 590 points in the 25 metre centre fire pistol.
He also added the team gold medal and won a total of three golds and one silver in the shooting competition.
In the men's skeet event Kazakhstan took the gold to strengthen their hold on the fourth place in the medals table, with Kuwait second and China taking the bronze.
Salah Almutairi from Kuwait won the individual gold medal.
The outstanding performance of the day in the Khalifa Stadium where the athletics competition is being held was the Asian record thrown by world junior record holder Zhang Wenxiu in the women's hammer throw with a throw of 74.14m.
The men's event saw a first-ever gold medal for Tajikistan as Dilsho Nazarov stunned the pre-competition favourite Ali Zenkawi from Kuwait. Nazarow was aware of the importance of the victory.
'This is a big victory for my country. It is the first gold medal we have ever won at the Asian Games in any sport.'
Japanese long distance runner Kayoko Fukushi obliterated the field in the women's 10,000m, while the two triathlon gold medals - an event that is being held for the first time at the Asian Games - went to China and Kazakhstan.
In the women's event Wang Hongni won ahead of the Japanese pair of Ai Ueda and Akiko Sekine, while Dmitriy Gaag won the men's event with a total time of 1:50:53.14 hours. Hong Kong's Lee Chi Wo was second, followed by another Kazakh, Daniil Sapunov.
In the final athletics event of the day, Kenya scored a one-two in the 3,000m steeplechase Denis Kipkirui Keter, who is now known as Tareq Mubarek Salem and runs for Bahrain, won from James Kipkemboi Katui, who now runs for Qatar and is called Gamal Belal Salem.
The two Salems spent all but the last lap sitting behind China's Lin Xiangqian, but overtook him with ease on the final lap.
The Bahraini Salem, who won the 2005 world junior title - though that victory is under investigation as there is suspicion that he was too old to compete - won in a time of 8:26.85 minutes.
His Qatari namesake was 3.25 seconds behind, with Lin getting the bronze.
The winner said he was confident that he would have also done well had the world record holder competed. 'We would have expected stiffer competition, but I am sure that even if he had not been absent, I would still have been the winner.'
Four bodybuilding gold medals were awarded, with China's Qian Ji Cheng winning the men's 60kg, the 65kg went to Mohamed Salem Abdulla Zahmi of the United Arab Emirates, the 70kg went to Chua Ling Fung of Singapore and Chan Yun To from Hong Kong won the men's 75kg.
Saudi Arabian Bader al-Alshaikh won the men's all events bowling competition, while Choi Jin A won the women's event. The men carom 3 cushion-singles in the cue sports competition was won by Japan's Ryuji Umeda.
Other gold medal winners were Taiwan in the men's doubles soft tennis with Japan winning the women's event, China took the duet in the synchronised swimming, while South Korea won the men's team event in tennis. The women's team final between India and Taiwan had to be suspended for much of the day because of rain.
Three of the four Taekwondo gold medals on Friday went to South Korea with You Young Dae (men's 58kg), Kwon Eun Kyung (women's 51kg) and Hwang Kyung Seon (women's 67kg). The other gold medal went to Qatar's Abdulqader Hikam Sarhan (men's 78kg).
In the mixed doubles badminton event Zheng Bo and Gao Ling beat their Chinese team-mates Xie Zhongbo and Zhang Yawen in two sets.
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