Day-8 Roundup: Record Shattering on Track, Weightlifting Bout

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, November 20, 2001

Day-8 Roundup: Record Shattering on Track, Weightlifting Bout

Liaoning athletes shone in the athletics event and judo, while Guangdong strongman surpassed a world record in men's 62-kilogram weightlifting on the eighth day of China's Ninth National Games going on here in Guangdong, with Guangzhou as its center venue.

In women's 20-kilometer walking race, three Liaoning athletes bettered Asia's best time, with Wang Yan, runner-up at the 1999 World Athletics Championships in Spain, took the gold at one hour 26 minutes and 22 seconds.

Her teammate Wang Liping, Sydney Olympic champion in the same sport, was on the lead most of time but fell only one second behind Wang Yan at the finishing line.

Champion of the 1999 World Athletics Championships Liu Hongyu, also from Liaoning, finished third timing in 1:26:35.

All the three out of 22 walkers beat Asia's best time of 1:27:30 created by Liu Hongyu in Beijing on May 1, 1995, and walked to one of the best times of the year.

Another athlete from Liaoning, Dong Yanmei on the squad guided by famed coach Ma Junren, known as "Ma's Army," retained her title in women's 10,000-meter race in Guangzhou's Olympic Stadium by clocking 31 minutes and 43.59 seconds, winning the fifth athletics gold for the army. Dong's result, however, was more than two minutes short of the world record of 29:31.78.

Ma Junren claimed he would recruit athletes from other provinces apart from his home province Liaoning, saying, "Ma's Army not only belongs to Liaoning, but also belongs to the country."

Except that Liu Xiang from Shanghai took the men's 110 meters hurdles event in 13.36 seconds, 11 hundredths of a second behind the national and Asian record, no other flashing points in the track and field events were spotted on Monday.

In the last-day judo competitions held in Zhongshan, two gold medals went to Liaoning's judokas, adding up the delegation's judo golds to seven, out of a total 16.

Olympic champion Yuan Hua beat all her rivals in three rounds of contests in women's open-weight category, with the most protracted round lasting only one and a half minutes.

In the first-day trial of strength between male lifters in Jiangmen, host Guangdong's unknown Su Feixiang bettered the world record of 325.0kg with a margin of 2.5 kg to grab the gold medal in the division. He snatched 147.5kg and jerked up 180.0kg. Fu had beaten several favorites to seal the victory, including Olympic veteran Le Maosheng from Hunan and national record holder Shi Zhiyong from Fujian.

In the 56kg category, Fujian's 18-year-old strongman Zhang Xiangxiang overpowered other lifters to heft a total of 295kg and win the title.

The swimming contests ended with three novice male swimmers breaking the national record in the men's 1,500-meter freestyle.

Zhejiang's Yu Cheng, newly-crowned winner and national record holder of the 400m freestyle, touched home in 15:15.95, edging Zheng Shibin of host Guangdong to the second place in 15:29.39, and teammate Wu Peng to the third in 15:18.65.

The results of the three are all faster than the previous national mark of 15:29.39 set by Zheng Shibin in South-east Asian Games last May.

The eight-day swimming competition have witnessed six world's-best, three second and three third on the year's rankings.

Chen Yan, world champion and former world record holder in women's 400m individual medley, snatched two world top spots in 200m and 400m medley, Zhang Liang in women's 200m and 400m freestyle, world champion Luo Xuejuan in women's 100m breaststroke and the army in 4x200m freestyle relay.

Three Asian records and twelve national records were also upset during the swimming competitions at the quadrennial national games.

However, there are people challenging the credibility of some of the records, as Luo Xuejuan, the 17-year-old champion of women's 100m breaststroke, urged the games' winners to "make similarly impressive accomplishments in international competitions."

In the diving competition held in Shantou, Guangdong's teenage pair Li Zhenzhen and Lao Lishi made a perfect duet to clinch the gold in women's synchronized 10-meter platform, scoring a total of 354.00 points, while Wang Tianling and Song Dinghui from Shanghai earned 370.71 points to claim the title of men's synchronized 3m springboard.

Day 6 Roundup: Ma's Army Comes to Stage at National Games

Day 7 Round-up: More Golds for Ma's Runners, Guangdong Swimmers

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