Paradorn wins tennis, China passes 1998 gold total

Phil Brown, Associated Press, Busan, South Korea

Paradorn Srichaphan, who has beaten some of the world's best, gave Thailand the gold medal it sought Saturday in Asian Games tennis.

While the Thais, with 10 golds in all, were in a contest with India and Uzbekistan for fifth in the medals race, China pushed its gold total above the 129 it won four years ago in Bangkok.

Chinese divers won their seventh gold in seven events when Lao Lishi defeated compatriot Li Na in women's platform competition.

Earlier, Chinese won four of the day's eight canoeing races, and Ma Yanping defended her women's cross country cycling title.

Runner Sun Yingjie was a decisive winner in the women's 5,000 meters, Gu Yuan won the women's hammer throw and Li Rongxiang took the men's javelin.

China also captured the women's volleyball gold, beating South Korea 25-12, 25-16, 22-25, 25-19.

That lifted China's total to 139 gold medals. In all, 419 are at stake in these games, which end Monday. The 1998 games had 378 gold medals.

Defending champion China will play South Korea on Monday for the gold medals in both men's and women's basketball. The men beat Kazakhstan 131-62 Saturday, while South Korea edged the Philippines 69-68 at the buzzer. The women defeated Japan 92-69, while the Koreans downed Taiwan 94-68.

South Korea lifted its gold total to 81, and reclaimed its Asian Games men's hockey field hockey title from defending champion India with a 4-3 victory.

It won three of the day's four finals in the Korean martial art of taekwondo, bringing its record to nine of 12 with four divisions remaining.

It also gained golds in women's team handball, the women's modern pentathlon relay, the Chinese martial art of wushu and women's doubles tennis, where Kim Mi-ok and Choi Young-ja beat Indonesia's Wynne Adiati Prakusya and Angelique Widjaja 7-6 (3), 1-6, 6-3.

Japan improved to 43 golds. It took one in karate and incurred no penalty faults en route to another in the equestrian team show jumping.

Myanmar won its first gold of the games, in wushu.

War-ravaged Afghanistan won its first medal here of any kind, a bronze in taekwondo taken by Roia Zamani in women's middleweight taekwondo.

Middle East successes in men's distance races continued, meanwhile, with Bahrain's Rashid Ramzi winning the 1,500, ahead of two Chinese.

Saudi Arabia's Hussein Al-Saba won the men's long jump, 15 centimeters ahead of China's Li Dalong.

Thailand had counted on two tennis gold medals, but top-seeded woman Tamarine Tanasugarn lost her final Friday to Uzbekistan's Iroda Tulyaganova.

Paradorn let a 4-1 lead in the second set slip away before beating South Korea's Lee Hyung-taik 7-6 (3), 6-4 in the men's final.

Paradorn, who slept late and almost missed his bus to the tennis stadium Saturday, said that on his way to the gold, he had help from Lee Hyung-taik, and Lee's coach and trainer.

First, they helped him find more interesting food than that available in the athletes village, he said. Then Lee's trainer taped his injured shoulder before the final.

Paradorn became a hero back home with victories over Andre Agassi at Wimbledon and over No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt a week ago at the Japan Open. He has climbed this year to 28th in the ATP rankings from outside the top 100.

Lee reached the fourth round of the U.S. Open in 2000, losing to Pete Sampras.

South Korea won the women's team handball gold by beating China 26-19 and finishing unbeaten in round-robin play. Kazakhstan (2-1-1) took the silver and China (1-2-1) the bronze.

Chinese finished the games' canoeing competition with eight golds from 13 races.

Wang Bing and Yang Wenjun had the narrowest victory, coming from half a second behind at the halfway point to edge Kazakhstan's Alexander Buglakov and Alexey Cherchenko by 0.204 in the men's 500-meter double Canadian canoes. The Chinese pair also had won gold in the 1,000-meter race two days earlier.

Kazakhstan, fourth in the overall gold medals race with 18, won two races Saturday, the two- and four-man kayaks. Uzbekistan also took two golds. Anton Ryahov took the men's single kayaks, and the four-woman kayak team edged China by less than a second.

These games' first gold medals in China's sport of wushu did not go to China. South Korea's Yang Seong-chan won in the men's combined two-event competition in taijiquan - or shadow boxing - and Myanmar's Khaing Khaing Maw won the women's event.

Boxing semifinals ended Saturday, leaving six Uzbekistan fighters, five each from South Korea, Kazakhstan and Pakistan, two from Thailand and one from the Philippines to compete Sunday for gold in 12 weight classes.

Japan's Kenichi Imai won gold in the men's 60-kilogram combat division of karate. Malaysia's P. Ramasamy won at 55 kilograms, Indonesia's M. Hasan Basri at 65 and Iran's Alireza Katiraei at 70.

Taiwan's Huang Chih-hsiung prevented a South Korean sweep of the day's gold medal matches in taekwondo, beating South Korea's Kim Hyang-soo in men's bantamweight competition. South Korean winners were Kim Kyung-hun at men's middleweight, Yun Kyung-rim at women's bantamweight, and Choi Jin-mi at women's middleweight.