Lee remains windsurfing champ, China piles up points

Phil Brown, Associated Press, Busan, South Korea

Lee Lai-shan, who learned windsurfing in a Hong Kong fishing village, proved as reliable as China's divers in winning gold at the Asian Games on Wednesday.

For Chinese table tennis players, the day marked a return to winning ways. They captured the men's and women's singles titles after losing in four of five earlier events in the sport they once dominated.

South Korea won the men's team badminton gold medal 3-1 over Indonesia after a two-hour delay. Indonesia's first player, Taufik Hidayat, stormed off over line calls that team manager Christian Hidayat called unfair and biased. Indonesia's only point came from a doubles victory.

The 32-year-old Lee, known as "San San," was one of only three sailing winners who were not from China or South Korea. Those nations won six golds each on waters near Busan's most popular beach.

Lee, the games' defending champion and 1996 Olympic gold medalist in women's Mistral sailing, didn't even need to sail in the final two of the 11 races. She had an unbeatable lead after seven firsts and two seconds.

It was Hong Kong's fourth gold medal of the games.

China, meanwhile, increased its total to 119 with two more diving victories, three in athletics, two in table tennis and one in rhythmic gymnastics, in addition to the sailing triumphs.

South Korea was a distant second with 60 after beating Taiwan 4-3 for the baseball gold medal. Japan followed with 37.

"It was important for us to win here," said South Korean baseball manager Kim In-suk. "There was a lot of pressure on us and if we didn't win baseball in Korea could have suffered."

Chinese won eight of 10 diving events at last year's world championships, and have taken the first four of eight scheduled here.

World champions Peng Bo and Wang Kenan won the men's synchronized 3-meter springboard event. Duan Qing, who shared in a gold medal last year, joined new partner Li Ting in winning the women's synchronized platform competition.

Table tennis world champion Wang Liqin beat Taiwan's Chuang Chih-yuan 11-4, 12-10, 13-11, 11-7 for the men's gold. In an all- Chinese women's final, No. 2 Zhang Yining defeated No. 1 Wang Nan 11-7, 11-6, 7-11, 12-14, 11-8, 6-11, 11-9.

In athletics, China's Gao Shuying won the women's pole vault by clearing 4.35 meters, beating the games mark of 4.00 set by compatriot Cai Weiyan in 1998, and Li Meiju won the women's shot put. Liu Xiang won the men's 110-meter hurdles.

Runners from the Middle East kept up their success on the track.

After Saudi Arabia won three golds on the two previous days, Kuwait's Fawzi Al-Shammari edged Saudi runner Hamdan O. Al-Bishi 44.93 seconds to 44.95 in the men's 400 meters.

But in field events, Saudi Arabia's Salem M.M. Al-Mowallad won the triple jump, with 16.60 meters to 16.57 by China's Lao Jianfeng.

Qatar's Khamis Abdulla Saifeldin beat Japan's Yoshitaka Iwamizu by 1.2 seconds in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, and Bahrain's Rashid Mohamed won the men's 800.

Thailand finished with five of the six gold medals in sepak takraw, an acrobatic form of volleyball in which use of the hands is barred. In the men's regu final, it beat Myanmar 2-0. In the women's, it defeated China 2-0. The Thais missed gold only in the men's circle event.

In tennis, the two Thais seeded first in men's and women's singles both won.

Paradorn Srichaphan needed only 35 minutes to advance to the men's quarterfinals with a 6-0, 6-2 victory over Tajikistan's Sergei Makashin.

But after taking a 5-0 lead, Tamarine Tanasugarn lost six straight games before reaching the women's semifinals with a 7-6 (5), 6-4 victory over South Korea's Jeon Mi-ra.

For the first time in nine days of weightlifting competition, no world record was broken or tied. Qatar's Asaad Said Saif Asaad outlifted China's Cui Wenhua by a total of 2.5 kilograms for gold in the men's 105-kilogram division.

In sailing, Indonesia's I Gusti Made Oka Sulaksana in the men's heavy Mistral and Japan's 14-year-old Shibuki Iitsuka in the boys' Optimist joined Lee in breaking the Chinese-South Korean monopoly.

China's sailing winners were Zhuo Yuanguo in the men's light Mistral event, Xu Lijia in the girls' Optimist class, Sun Maochun in the men's heavy raceboard, Wang Yan and Song Xiaqun in the women's 420, Lu Chunfeng in the women's Europe class and Shen Sheng in the open laser radial division.

South Korea's were Lee Dong-woo and Park Jong-woo in men's 420, Jung Sung-ahn and Kim Dae-young in men's 470, Kim Ho-kon in laser, Ok Duck-pil in men's light raceboard, Jun Joo-hyun and Jung Kuen in Enterprise and Jin Hong-chul in the OK dinghy class.

China's Zhong Ling won the rhythmic gymnastics all-around gold medal.