Guan's big leap takes China to magic 100

Fri, 18 Dec 1998 | Source: AFP

BANGKOK (AFP): Long jumper Guan Yingnan took China to a century of gold medals at the Bangkok Asian Games on Thursday -- but her team's accusations of attempted bribery cast a dark cloud over celebrations.

Guan shed tears of pride as the "March of the Volunteers" anthem was played for the 100th time on the 12th day of competition, though her country has made agonizingly slow progress in the past two days.

A jump of 6.89 meters brought gold for Guan, but only four others came during the day: Li Shaojie who threw a Games record 64.58 metres in the discus, Don Jiong in the men's badminton final and Gei Fei and Gu Jun, the world and Olympic champions, in the women's doubles. Fan Yunjie scored a golden goal to win the women's soccer final against North Korea.

China's claims that an agent had tried to buy a table tennis final and the distant thunder of cannon from the renewed conflict in the Gulf, caught many of the 41 nations here off guard.

The father of Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, president of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), was killed by Iraqi troops when they invaded Kuwait in 1990. Iraq has been excluded ever since.

But the OCA's time was taken up by China's bombshell statement that someone had offered money to an unnamed table-tennis star to lose an Asiad final.

Approaches

Li Furong, vice-chairman of the COC, said repeated approaches were made. But he added that athlete would have turned down even US$100,000 to throw the match.

The OCA launched an inquiry but said there was little they could do as the bribe offerer had escaped. A warning was expected to be made to countries at a meeting on Friday however.

The sporting drama came in the boxing where, Dingko Singh, orphaned as an infant and snubbed by Indian Olympic chiefs, became his country's first Asian Games boxing gold medalist in 16 years.

Singh, 20, defeated Uzbekistan's Timur Tulyakov in the 54- kilogram final. Tulyakov did not come out for the fifth round, knowing he was too far behind on points.

It was a double victory for Singh, who was originally dropped by the Indian Olympic committee because he was not considered a medal contender, even though he was voted Best Boxer at Thailand's King's Cup last year.

Officials from India's boxing governing body eventually paid for his trip.

Singh became a hate figure among Thai fans when he shocked th host's gold medal favorite Sontaya Wongprates in the semifinals. He was booed by the 6,000 fans as he entered the ring Thursday night and again during his victory lap around the stadium.

Thailand claimed three boxing golds and expect more.

Indonesia also enjoyed gold medals haul, albeit a few, with Yayuk Basuki ensuring a glittering end to her international tennis career with the women's singles crown. She silenced the home crowd with an upset 6-4, 6-2 over top seed Tamarine Tanasugarn.

Karateka Arif Taufan Syamsuddin gave Indonesia its second gold of the day when he beat Fakhruddin Taher of United Arab Emirates in the men's 60kg division.

Indonesia collected its third gold through badminton men's doubles team of Ricky Subagja and Rexy Mainaky beat Thailand's Pramote Teerawiwatana and Siripong Siripool 15-5, 15-10.