Doping case spoils Chinese glory in Asiad athletics
Doping case spoils Chinese glory in Asiad athletics
HIROSHIMA, Japan (Reuter): China netted six out of nine golds at the Asian Games athletics meet yesterday but the sweet taste of success was soured by a drugs scandal.
While Liu Xiaomei was crowned Asia's sprint queen and the first male recruit to Ma's Family Army won gold, the Chinese team was thrown into turmoil by the revelation that discus thrower Qu Qiaping had failed a dope test.
In Qu's absence, the women's discus was won by another Chinese woman, Min Chunfeng, with a throw of 62.52 meters.
"I cannot believe that she would take drugs. Before we came to Japan, Qu had a bad back but I don't think she took anything for it," said a shaken Min after her victory.
Min's winning throw was considerably below Qu's personal best of 66.60m and there seems little doubt that Qu would have taken first place in Hiroshima had she competed.
Away from the Chinese medal machine, tiny Qatar challenged to sweep all golds in the men's sprint events, and it was a golden day for the newcomer central Asian republics at the Hiroshima Big Arch stadium.
Liu took the women's 100m title in a Games record time of 11.27, pipping Taiwan's Wang Huei-chen who was hunting for a second gold after winning the 200m on Tuesday.
The battle between Liu and a jittery Wang, who caused a false start, had been billed as close-fought, but in the end Liu said she found the race easy.
"Before the race I thought it would be close, but in the end it turned out to be not so tough," said an exultant Liu.
Wang said her tough Asian Games campaign, which has brought Asian Games track success to Taiwan for the first time in 24 years, had exhausted her.
Sun Ripeng, one of the first men to come under the stern eye of Chinese coach Ma Junren, made an astonishing sprint at the end of the 3,000m steeplechase to humble Saudi pre-race favorite S. Al-Mozazae.
He is the first male success story for Ma, who whipped up his own storm of controversy this week over his disclosure that he organized mass appendix removals for most of his squad.
He also came under fire on Thursday from the chief of China's sports bureaucracy who said Ma was overtraining his athletes and complaining too much about lack of cash.
But Ma, sitting in the sunny weather at the Big Arch, was not in a complaining mood and said he was happy for Sun, proclaiming that his time of 8:31.73 was only the start.
"With some more training I can take another 20 seconds off his time," Ma said.
Qatar shines
Qatar's Osman Ahmed Suleiman, younger brother of reigning Asian Games 1,500m champion Mohammed Suleiman, had a disappointing run in the steeplechase, but the Gulf sheikhdom had success again on the shorter track.
Qatar's 100m champion Talal Mansoor al-Rahim and compatriot Ibrahim Ismail Muftah, winner of the 400m title, bid to add the 200m to Qatar's tally.
In heats for Saturday's final Muftah, who took the 400m gold on Tuesday in 45.28 seconds, led the qualifiers in a time of 20.85.
Sprint champion Mansoor, winner of the most controversial race to date at the Asian Games, won his heat in 21.04.
Ma Yuqin coasted to victory in the women's 400m final in a Games record time of 51.17. Her team mate Zhang Hengyun took silver after limping over the line with a pulled muscle.
Han Qing took a gold and a Games record time of 54.74 in the women's 400m hurdles, leaving teammate Leng Xueyan trailing at the finish.
In the men's discus, Zhang Cubbiao and Ma Wei had it all their own way for Chinese gold and silver. Zhang's winning throw was 58.78.
Chinese favorite Liu Hao took the shot put title with a Games record throw of 19.26m.
While China remained by far the dominant force in track and field it was Kazakhstan which climbed into second place in the day's hunt for medals, with a total of two golds, three silvers and a bronze.
In the pole vault Igor Potapovich won gold with a Games record leap of 5.65, while veteran team mate Grigory Egorov, the bronze medalist at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, took silver.
Potapovich said the pole vault's postponement from its original slot on Tuesday because of bad weather had given him the jitters and he had decided not to try for the Asian mark of 5.90.
Central Asia won more gold in the high jump, Uzbekistan's Svetlana Mounkova winning with a leap of 1.92m followed in silver slot by Kazakhstan's Svetlana Zalevskaya.
In the triple jump, Oleg Sakirkin took gold for Kazakhstan with a mark of 17.21, with team mate Sergey Arzamasov taking bronze. Japan's Takashi Komatsu took the silver.