Japan inflicts severe blow to mighty Chinese swimmers

Wed, 09 Dec 1998 | Source: AFP

BANGKOK (Agencies): Japan humiliated China's controversial swimmers at the Asian Games on Tuesday as the sporting superpower struggled to get the gold medals it has become used to.

Takahiro Mori, Masami Tanaka, Takashi Yamamoto and the men's freestyle relay team ushered in a defiant new mood as China failed to win any of the five swimming finals.

Taiwanese Tsai Shu-min sneaked in ahead of Qin Caini in the women's 200-meter freestyle to add to the angry mood in the Chinese camp.

"Today is the darkest day for Chinese swimmers," said China's head coach Zhang Xiong.

China also faced a new day of toil in the shooting, where it managed only one gold out of six, but extraordinary performances in diving, weightlifting, and gymnastics gave China a slender 13- 12 lead over Japan in the gold medal rankings.

It has been a long time since Japan has seen such a night of triumph in the Asian Games swimming.

Yamamoto won the men's 100m butterfly in a Games record of 53.34sec, Tanaka took the women's 200m breaststroke, Mori the men's 400m individual medley and their men took the 4 x 200m freestyle relay.

"I'm number one in Asia," shouted Yamamoto, as Japanese celebrations got underway.

China cannot now hope to match the 25 swimming golds it won in Hiroshima four years ago, where it feat was overshadowed by seven drug failures, including two world champions.

China has also been counting on picking off shooting range titles in Bangkok, but has managed only one out of the 10 decided so far.

Trainee teacher Dina Aspandiyarova of Kazakhstan claimed a gold in the women's air pistol final and silver in the team event to grab the glory on the second day. China got only the team air pistol gold.

The Games favorite marksmen have been struggling all week with poor health and concentration.

China's Cai Yeqing who was second to Aspandiyarova highlighted the mounting nerves of her team. "Occasionally, I even did not think I was holding the gun properly. So I had to raise or lower the pistol several times," she said.

There was controversy in tae kwon do when the judges ruled out their own decision to give Indonesia's woman flyweight Juana Wangsa Putri a win over Thailand's Usa Sinlapajarn only after the home side lodged a protest.

Bloody nose

Juana, making her debut, had to be content with the bronze.

Indonesia lost another chance to win its first gold medal after Satriyo Rahardani, fighting with a bloody nose, was outdueled by Vietnam's Ho Nhat-Thong in their tae kwon do men's flyweight final.

Combined with woman lifter Sri Indriyani's third-place finish on Monday, Indonesia has now collected a silver and two bronzes. The Jakarta Post quoted Reuters on Monday that Indonesia won a silver and three bronzes.

In weightlifting, China's Yang Xia created a sensation by setting two world records on her way to the gold medal in the women's 53kg class.

The 21-year-old student lifted 120kg in the clean and jerk to overtake compatriot Wang Xiufen's record of 117.5kg set at the world championships in Finland last month. Her overall 212.5kg surpassed Wang's world record of 210kg.

Teammate Le Maosheng then won the men's 62kg to continue China's impressive sweep of all four golds contended so far.

World champions Liu Xuan, Bi Wenjing, Kui Yuanyuan and their young teammates Meng Fei, Xu Jing and Ling Jie also retained the women's team gymnastics title with 154.174 points. Japan was second and South Korea third.

The Chinese dedicated their victory to 17-year-old teammate, Sang Lan, who was paralyzed while practicing at the Goodwill Games in New York in July.

The first snooker final at the Asian Games, meanwhile, was won by Shokat Ali of Pakistan who came back from six frames to four down to beat Malaysia's Sam Chong 7-6.