Bodybuilding helps S. Korea catch Japan in medals race
Bodybuilding helps S. Korea catch Japan in medals race
Phil Brown, Associated Press, Busan, South Korea
Cho Wang-bung and Han Dong-ki showed off their muscles and collected Asian Games gold medals on Saturday, helping South Korea overtake Japan for second place behind runaway leader China.
The two Koreans, in the 60- and 70-kilogram divisions, were the first winners in bodybuilding, making its games debut. Vietnam's Duc Ly and Bahrain's Tariq Alfarsani won later at 80 and 90 kilograms, giving Bahrain its first gold of these games.
Indonesia also won its first gold here, beating Japan 2-1 in women's team tennis when Wynne Adiati Prakusya and Angelique Widjaja defeated Saori Obata and Miho Saeki 6-4, 6-0 in the deciding doubles.
Shooters gave host South Korea three golds and gymnasts added one, lifting its total to 28 - ahead of Japan's 26 but far behind China's 81.
China's big haul for the day was six golds in gymnastics.
Japan gained one gold from gymnastics and one when cyclists Yuichiro Kamiyama, Harutomo Watanabe and Takashi Kaneko won the men's team sprint in 1 minute, 00.927 seconds. South Korea won silver in 1:01.846.
Meanwhile, Japan advanced to the gold medal game in softball by trouncing Taiwan 10-0 in a game shortened to six innings because of the 10-run margin. It now awaits the winner of a game between Taiwan and China, an 8-1 winner over North Korea on Saturday.
Neither Japan nor South Korea expects to catch China in the overall medals race, but the contest for second is intense. In the 1998 games, the Koreans beat Japan with 65 golds to 52 behind China's 129.
China beat South Korea for the team gold medal in men's table tennis, after North Korea upset the Chinese for the women's team gold Friday night. China has won 13 world championships in women's team play.
It added one gold each in billiards, cycling and shooting.
Two of China's six gymnastics golds for the day came when Li Xiaopeng and Huang Xu tied at 9.800 on the parallel bars. Li also won the vault, ahead of all-around gold medalist Yang Wei of China.
On the horizontal bar, a late change in the judges' scores lifted Teng Haibin into a gold-medal tie with Japan's Hiroyuki Tomita and Yang Tae-seok.
China's Kang Xin won on the balance beam and Zhang Nan shared victory in the floor exercises with Oksana Chusovitina, a 27-year-old mother from Uzbekistan. Chusovitina won silver on the balance beam.
In shooting, after winning 17 of the first 20 gold medals, China slowed its pace. It won in women's double trap team shooting, while Kazakhstan's Sergey Belyaev beat Turkmenistan's Igor Pirekeev 10.7-10.4 in a shootoff for the gold in the men's 50-meter prone rifle event.
For South Korea's three shooting golds, Lee Sang-hee won the women's double trap individual event and her male compatriots won two team events - prone rifle and double trap.
Taiwan's Chen Shih-wei won the men's individual double trap title in a shootoff after he tied with compatriot Shih Wei-tin and South Korea's Jung Yoon-kyun at 187. Shih won the silver in another shootoff.
In the Southeast Asian sport of sepak takraw, Malaysia beat South Korea and advanced to the men's team gold medal match against Thailand. In women's competition, Thailand and Vietnam advanced to the final. Thailand beat China and Vietnam defeated South Korea in semifinals.
China won its cycling gold from Zhao Haijuan's victory in the women's 3-kilometer individual pursuit.
Kazakhstan's Vadim Kravchenko won the men's 4-kilometer version of that race.