It was another golden day for Chinese athletes on Sunday as they added a further 13 gold medals to the 16 they had won on the opening day of competition at the Asian Games in Doha.
They comfortably won both the men's and women's table tennis, beating South Korea and Singapore respectively in the finals, with Hong Kong and Taiwan picking up the bronze in the men's, while the two Koreas each got bronze in the women's event.
Sunday also saw the first world record of the competition, with Chen Yanqing, who had earlier retired from retirement, setting three world records and winning the women's 58kg class, continuing China's dominance of the weightlifting competition.
PHOTO: AFP
Chen hoisted 111kg to improve Wang Li's 2003 mark in the snatch by 1kg.
She lifted 140kg in the clean and jerk and 251kg overall to beat compatriot Qu Wei's marks of 139kg and 241kg set at the world championships in Doha last year.
The 27-year-old Olympic champion said that she had decided last year to quit the sport because she did not want to spend the best years of her life training.
"But I returned because my love for weightlifting is endless and I want to compete at the 2008 Beijing Olympics," she said.
She comfortably won the gold medal ahead of Thailand's Wandee Kameaim and North Korean Pak Hyon-suk.
It was one of three gold medals China got on Sunday in weightlifting, with the others coming from Qiu Le in the 62kg division, while Zhang Guozheng won the 69kg division.
China had less success on Sunday at the Hamad Aquatic Center, where they won two of six gold medals.
The standout performance belonged to South Korean teenager Park Tae-hwan as he broke his own Asian record over 200m freestyle to give his country their 15th Asian Games swimming gold.
Park, who set the Asian record at 1:47.51 minutes in Australia earlier this year, won in a time of 1:47.12, beating China's Zhang Lin into second place. Zhang finished in a time of 1:47.85.
"During the race I did not think about setting a record, but now that I have done it, I am very happy. My family was in the stadium and I dedicate the victory to them and my coach," Park said.
China's Pang Jiaying became the first athlete at the Games to win three gold medals when she added a gold for the 4x100m freestyle relay to the two golds she won in the 200m freestyle and the 4x100m medley relay on Saturday.
Pang was the final swimmer for a China team that won in a time of 3:42.11 minutes. The silver medal went to Japan after South Korea who had finished second were disqualified. Hong Kong took the bronze medal.
Other swimming gold medal winners on the day were Takashi Yamamoto (men's 100m butterfly), Vladislav Polyakov (men's 50m breaststroke), Reiko Nakamura (women's 200m backstroke) and Qi Hui (400m women's individual medley).
On the firing range, China once again dominated by winning four of the seven gold medals.
There was success for Kuwait though as Naser Meqlad became a double-gold medalist when he helped the Middle Eastern country to victory in the men's trap event and also secured the gold medal for himself in the individual event, with compatriot Khaled Almudhaf winning bronze.
Meqlad said that the wind made conditions difficult.
"It does affect me, but everybody competes under the same conditions. I feel the pressure when Manvjit Singh's marks are close to mine. He is a good shooter," he said.
India's Singh won silver, as he did in the team event, with the bronze in the team competition going to Lebanon.
Another double-gold medalist was China's Tan Zongliang, who won the men's 10m air pistol event ahead of North Korean Kim Jong-su and South Korean Jin Jong-oh.
He then helped his team win the team event as well. South Korea won the silver, while the bronze went to Vietnam.
In the men's 50m rifle prone team event Kazakhstan won their first gold medal of the Games ahead of South Korea and China.
In the women's shooting competition, China continued their dominance with Tao Luna winning individual and team gold in the women's 10m air pistol event. Compatriot Wenjun Guo won silver in the individual, ahead of South Korea's Kim Byung-hee.
In the team event India won the silver, while South Korea picked up the bronze.
Other gold medal winners of the day where Malaysian Chea Mei Lan who won gold in the women's singles bowling, men's cycling road race winner Wong Kam Po from Hong Kong and the Chinese women's team in the artistic gymnastics.
There were also four gold medals in judo, with Mongolian Nyamkhuu Damdinsuren winning the 81kg division, Hwang Hee-tae from South Korea won the men's 90kg division, while Chinese Xu Yuhua and Masae Ueno won the women's 63kg and 70kg divisions respectively.
Twelve days after winning her second Grand Slam title at the French Open, Coco Gauff fell at the first hurdle on grass in Berlin on Thursday as beaten Paris finalist Aryna Sabalenka advanced to the quarter-finals. Recipient of a first round bye, American Gauff lost 6-3, 6-3 to Chinese qualifier Wang Xinyu as world number one Sabalenka beat Rebeka Masarova 6-2, 7-6 (8/6) in her second round tie. Winner of 10 main tour titles, including the US Open in 2023 and the WTA Finals last year, Gauff has yet to lift a trophy in a grass-court tournament. “After I won the first
While British star Jack Draper spent the past week trying to find rhythm and comfort in his first grass tournament of the season at the Queen’s Club Championships in London, Jiri Lehecka on Saturday bulldozed everything in his path. After more than two furious hours of battle, their form was reflected in the final scoreline as Lehecka toppled a frustrated Draper, the second seed, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 to reach the biggest final of his career, against Carlos Alcaraz. Lehecka is also the first Czech to reach the men’s title match at Queen’s since Ivan Lendl lifted the trophy in 1990. Draper, who
Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka staged a “crazy comeback,” saving four match points before beating Elena Rybakina 7-6 (6), 3-6, 7-6 (6) in the quarter-finals of the Berlin Open on Friday. Sabalenka was 6-2 down in the final-set tie-breaker, but won six straight points to reach her eighth semi-final of the season. “Elena is a great player and we’ve had a lot of tough battles,” Sabalenka said. “I have no idea how I was able to win those last points. I think I just got lucky.” “I remember a long time ago when I was just starting, I won a lot of matches being down
The Canterbury Crusaders edged the Waikato Chiefs 16-12 in an intense Super Rugby Pacific final battle in Christchurch yesterday to claim their 15th title in 30 years of the Southern Hemisphere competition. Hooker Codie Taylor scored a try and Rivez Reihana contributed 11 points from the kicking tee as the most dominant team in Super Rugby history extended their perfect home playoff record to 32 successive matches since 1998. The Chiefs, who were looking for a first title since 2013, scored first-half tries through George Dyer and Shaun Stevenson, but were unable to register a point after the break and fell to
RSS