China dominates athletic c'ships with six golds
China dominates athletic c'ships with six golds
JAKARTA (JP): China's new faces lived up to their
predecessors' status as the strongest team on the continent
yesterday, scooping six gold medals on the second day of the 11th
Asian Track and Field Championships.
South Korea and India each took a gold apiece.
In an apparent justification of their long-time supremacy,
Chinese runners seized both the continent's fastest man and woman
tags, although they failed to beat the old marks.
Lin Wei, making his debut in the championships, ran 10.34
seconds to win the men's 100-meter. Cui Danfeng took the women's
sprint in 11.36, though she fell short of the new meet record of
11.28 she set in the heat race on Wednesday.
Two more meet records were shattered yesterday, taking the
tally to four after the second day of the Sept. 20-24 meet. Li
Mingcai broke the men's 20km walk in 1:23:58.80, shaving two
minutes and 30.89 off his senior Chen Sauguo's four-year-old
mark. Geng Huang produced the second new record of the day when
he leapt his personal best of 8.26 meters to win the long jump.
It was Wang Junxia, however, who starred in yesterday's golden
spree. Without the magic of turtle blood, the world record holder
stood head and shoulders above her minnow contenders to retain
her 10,000m crown.
Despite her convincing victory, Wang looked a little bit
slower than usual, clocking an under-par time of 33:58.50. Wang
set her personal best of 29:31.78 as a member of Ma's Army Family
in the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart, becoming the first
woman to run under 30 minutes.
"I have not consumed turtle blood for quite a long time, but
it is not the reason why I ran slower," Wang said through her
interpreter. "I simply lack competitors," she added.
The women's 10,000m race, the final event of the day, ended
Indonesia's wait for Asian championships medal. Tri Asih
Handayani, or Henny Melon, as her close mates call her, finished
a distant second with 35:45.07, ahead of Maysa Matrood of Iraq.
Only four women ran in the long-distance race, with host
Indonesia fielding its two best runners. The Indonesian team left
empty-handed at two previous meets in Kuala Lumpur and Manila.
The 100m final lost its dazzle after Asian record holder Talal
Mansoor retired. To make it worse, Asian Games silver medalist
Vitaly Savin of Kazakhstan and bronze medalist Chen Wenzhong of
China failed to qualify for the final.
"Chen has been suffering from a back injury," Wei said of his
senior's lackluster time of 14.63 in Wednesday's heat race.
Indonesia's best sprinter Mardi Lestari also failed to make it
to the final, blaming poor stamina for his semifinal defeat
yesterday.
India put itself among the gold medal winning countries,
thanks to Jyotirmoy Sikdar's triumph in the women's 800m. Sikdar
burst to 2:06.75, nearly two and a half seconds away from the
meet record set by her fellow Indian Shiny Abraham (now Shiny
Wilson) 10 years ago. Wilson finished only third behind Kumiko
Okamoto of Japan.
In the men's 800m, South Korea's Kim Yong-hwan upset pre-race
favorite and Asian 1,500 record holder Mohammad Sulaeman of Qatar
by just nine hundredth of a second. Kim clocked 1:49.94 to win
the gold, but he ran more than two seconds off the meet record
set by Malaysian Batu Rajkumar. (amd)