China leap ahead with lion's share of golds
(Xinhua)Updated: 2007-01-31 08:52
Hosts China rushed ahead in the steady but fascinating fashion in the second-day finals, winning five out of the eight on offer in the sixth Asian Winter Games on Tuesday.
 Wang Chunli. |
Japan, who stood side by side with China on Day 1, received two more golds, South Korea triumphed merely in the men's 500m x2 speedskating, and Kazakhstan remained gold-less by only enlarging their collection of silver and bronze medals to stop any other participating teams away from the medal podium.
Of the first two-day finals, China stood atop on an 8-5-10 sheet, beating Japan to a distant second on 5-2-3 and South Korea to third with two golds and six silvers. Kazakhstan enriched their collection to two silvers and two bronzes.
In the snow sports of the day, China and Japan continued their supremacy by claiming two gold medals apiece.
Wang Chunli of China beat off a strong challenge from Yelena Kolomina of Kazakhstan to win the women's sprint free, the first cross-country individual gold for China in the 21-year-old Winter Asiad history, and her fellow Chinese Hou Yuxia was third.
 Hu Ze. |
The Chinese women biathletes, who recorded their first sweep in the 7.5km sprint on Monday, had another clean sweep of all medals in the 10km pursuit at the Beidahu ski resort in Jilin city, the venue for all snow sports of the Games.
Kong Yingchao led her compatriots Liu Xianying and Dong Xue to occupy the top three positions.
The remaining snow golds of the day went to Japan as Yuichi Onda won the men's sprint free and Kazuhiro Kokubo took the men's snowboard halfpipe title.
Onda beat Alexey Poltoranin and Yevgeniy Koshevoy, both of Kazakhstan, for the top honor, and Kokubo outscored Chinese Shi Wancheng by 2.5 points to justify his upperhand in the sport.
The men's and women's 500m x2 speedskating gold medals were split by China and South Korea with Chinese Wang Beixing winning the women's and Lee Kang-Seok of South Korea atop the men's. Both of they wrote off the Asian records respectively in the first races.
"I gave up the Asian Championships for this tournament. My target here is to get the gold medal," said Wang who raced in 38.02 seconds in the first attempt, chopping 1.18 seconds off the previous one set by her compatriot Wang Manli.
"I am surprised," said Kevin Crockett, Wang's coach from Canada. "I knew she could win, but I didn't expect her to dominate."
 Wang Meng. |
In the evening's finals, Olympic champions had their different taste on the short track where Turin Olympic triple winner Ahn Hyun-Soo of South Korea was disqualified in the men's 500m and Wang Meng led a Chinese trio for a clean sweep in the women's 500 meters.
Ahn who finished second in the 1,500m on Monday, crossed the line first but was punished for a foul in overtaking from inside lane.
Asian champion Hu Ze of China was promoted to the first place in 42.042 seconds. Song Kyung-Taek of South Korea took the silver in 42.167 and Asiad 1,500m bronze medalist Li Ye of China picked up another bronze in 56.119 after a fall on the ice.
Both Hu and Song surpassed the previous Asian record of 42.537 set by Japanese Satoru Terao.
Wang Meng, who won women's 500m in Turin Olympics, savored the sweetness of victory after a third-place finish in the 1,500m on Monday, refreshing her own Asian record set up in the semi-final to win in 43.869 seconds, ahead of teammates Fu Tianyu and Zhu Mile.
"I felt I was in a safebox today since Fu and Zhu were behind me. I owe my victory to them," said the 21-year-old Wang.
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