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)