Host Thailand celebrates heroics in pool
Host Thailand celebrates heroics in pool
BANGKOK (Reuters): It was Thailand's night at the Asian Games pool on Thursday as one Thai swimmer set a brave Games record in the evening's big race and another came within arms-length of a major upset.
Japan and China won two golds apiece, with freestyle star Shunsuke Ito anchoring the Japanese to a thrilling relay gold that kept them two ahead in the overall gold medal battle.
Torlarp Sethsothorn became the instant hero of the Games by winning the host nation its first swim gold with a record- breaking feat in the men's 400-meter freestyle.
The race saw a gripping struggle between Torlarp and the talented Japanese Masato Hirano, who led narrowly through the first half of the race and seemed to be comfortably in control.
Torlarp hit the lead at the 250m mark -- and gave everything he had to hold off the Japanese and capture Thailand's first record of the Games with a time of three minutes and 53.61.
As the crowd at the brand new Thammasat swimming center erupted, Hirano hit home in 3.54.13, also inside the 3:54.72 set by South Korean Bang Seung-boon at Hiroshima in 1994
Kwok Kin-ming of Hong Kong won the bronze, while Torlarp's younger brother Torwai, an early contender, fell back to sixth.
Half an hour later another Thai, Ratapong Sirisanont, took the spotlight. Ratapong won golds in both men's individual medleys at Hiroshima after the disqualification of China's Xiong Guoming for doping.
But, even with thousands of Thai fans shouting him on, Ratapong could not quite catch China's Zhu Yi in the men's 200m breaststroke to claim a third.
The Thai was at best in third place for most of the race, but managed to overtake bronze medalist Yoshinobu Miyazaki of Japan in the final stretch for silver.
Zhu, swimming in his first international competition, won in 2:16.26 to Ratapong's 2:16.47.
"It feels very strange to have so much attention from the fans," said freestyle gold medalist Torlarp. "My time this morning (in the heats) was not very good so I felt a lot of pressure to perform this evening. I just swam to win."
After joining joyfully in with the Thai anthem during the medal ceremony, the normally placid crowd even managed a Mexican wave of celebration.
China, whose stars had appeared to be finally limbering up when they set three Games records on Wednesday, had a mixed night.
First Deng Qinsong finished a distant eighth in the men's freestyle, then the team saw 17-year-old hopeful Ruan Yi relegated into silver in the women's 100m butterfly by the powerfully built Japanese Ayari Aoyama.
Aoyama's time of 59.44 was outside the Games record of 58.38 set in Hiroshima by China's Liu Limin but well ahead of Ruan's 1:00.57.
The Chinese came good in the third of the fifth races, when Zhu beat Thai hope Ratapong, and then added a gold and a Games record in the fourth.
That race, the women's 100m breaststroke produced a Chinese one-two as Li Wei beat teammate Xu Shan and Japan's Masami Tanaka claiming bronze.
Li's time of 1:08.95 beat the 1:09.87 set by China's Dai Guohong in Hiroshima four years ago.
The final race of the evening was a tighter affair, pitting Japan's and China's top sprinters against each other in the men's 4X100 freestyle relay.
China's Wang Chuan set the pace in the first leg and they kept it narrowly until hitting the very last turn with just a 0.06 second advantage.
But Japanese anchorman Shunsuke Ito, the gold medalist in Wednesday's 100 metres freestyle, managed to overpower Deng Qingsong in the final laps to give Japan a 10-8 lead in the gold medal race.