North Korea's Hong In-sun and Choe Kum-hui upset China's plans for a diving sweep at the East Asian Games, upstaging Jia Tong and Yuan Peilin in Monday's 10m synchronized platform final.
China had extended its sequence to four gold in diving when Luo Yutong collected his second title of the meet by leading Chen Jiaming in a Chinese 1-2 finish in the men's 3m springboard.
But Jia and Yuan, leaders after three rounds, admitted they were unprepared for the North Korean women.
PHOTO: AP
"We haven't competed against North Korea before. We were nervous and made some mistakes we shouldn't have," said Yuan, a 13-year-old who beat Olympic champion Li Ting at last month's national games.
Despite that setback, China continued to dominate the medal standings, winning four of the first 10 medals awarded on day three and boosting its total to 25.
The other titles were more evenly divided than Sunday's program, when China (21) and host Macau (6) shut out the competition.
Tiny Macau, which had only earned one gold in three previous East Asian Games, held onto second place with 20 medals overall.
South Korea overtook Taiwan for third place, with Kang Hee-won and Gye Min-young capturing the men's and women's singles bowling titles, and Wushu athlete Lee Seung-kuen winning the nanquan, or fist fighting, final.
Japan and Taiwan gained their first gold medals of the Games in men's and women's teams soft tennis finals.
Taiwan beat China 79-56 in women's basketball preliminaries and then took the hot favorite Chinese men to the wire, eventually losing by three points after seven lead changes.
NBA prospect Yi Jianlian had 18 points and 10 rebounds, while Wang Shipeng scored 21 points as the Chinese men held on for a 68-65 win and extended their run here to 3-0. In a women's grudge match, South Korea beat North Korea 72-62.
Mongolia was against Hong Kong and Japan faced Macau in later men's basketball matches.
The Chinese maintained their momentum in weightlifting, adding the men's 69 kg and women's 53 kg titles to the three gold medals from Sunday, although there was nobody close to a record.
Yang Lian's world record lift at clean-and-jerk in the women's 48 kg division had given China its first gold medal on Sunday.
China has also been the dominant force in Wushu and expected more gold medals in the last five Wushu finals later Monday.
Chen Min became a multiple Wushu winner in the morning session, adding the Changquan title to her earlier win in the all around competition.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB