Athletics: India Chases China in Gold Fight in Busan

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, October 11, 2002

Athletics: India Chases China in Gold Fight in Busan

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India grabbed three titles against China's two in Thursday's athletic arena in Busan where nine gold medals were at stake, and jumped to the runner-up with six golds following China who was in the lead with eight on the tally.

On the fourth day of the Busan Asian Games athletics competition, Chinese female veteran hurdler Feng Yun, 31, cleared the 100 meters in 12.96 seconds to clinch the event's gold, the first one available in the morning and the seventh for the Chinese team.

Feng's teammate Su Yiping, 23, clocked 13.01 seconds to garner the silver.

Su, who was the most hopeful candidate for the event's title, said after the final, "I don't care much about whether Feng or I will clinch the title. I am also very glad to see that this gold belongs to China."

Chinese athlete Qi Haifeng claimed the men's decathlon title with 8,041 points in the afternoon, followed by Kazakh Dmitriy Kaprov with 7,995 points.

The 19-year-old Qi trailed Kaprov, 21, by 250 points in the first seven events. But Qi stormed back in the triple jump and javelin throws to cut the deficit to only 21 points when the final1500m race began. Then Qi collected enough points in the 1500m, which is his strong event, to step on the top of the podium.

Chinese team manager Luo Chaoyi said: "We knew nothing about Kaprov before the Asiad, and we did not find any information about him in Busan."

"Before coming here, we definitely defined the men's decathlon gold as our cake. But Kaprov nearly ruined our plan in the two-day competition." Luo added. "It was really a tough duel beyond our imagination."

India's gold wind blew from the noon when Sunita Rani took the title of women's 1500m race in 4:06.03.

Rani, bronze winner in the same event and the silver medalist in the 5,000m race at the 1998 Bangkok Asiad, said, "I expected a medal of any color. I am very glad to take the gold."

In the afternoon, Saraswati Saha from India, 23, picked the women's 200m race gold in 23.28 seconds. This gold could be in a sense a gift from Manannualage Jayasinghe, the talented female sprinter from Sri Lanka who took the gold of 100m race in 11.15 seconds in Busan on Tuesday afternoon, to Saha.

Jayasinghe missed today's 200m final due to a right thigh injury suffered in the preliminary round on Wednesday.

India's third gold of the day was contributed by Neelam JaswantSingh, 31, who tossed the discus to 64.55 meters.

Song Aimin and Li Shuli from China took the silver and bronze with 61.80 and 59.89 respectively.

Chinese discus coach Du Xicai said that Singh performed extremely well today and she threw the discus to 64.55 meters in her second attempt, which exerted great pressure on the two Chinese athletes.

Japanese runner Suetsugu Shingo, 22, grabbed the second gold medal for the gold-thirsty Japanese athletics team on Thursday, dashing across the 200m finish line in 20.38 seconds. Japan, another athletics powerhouse in Asia, collected only two golds when 31 of the 45 athletics golds were divided.

The other three golds today dropped into the pockets of Saudi Arabian Makhid Otaibi who clocked 13 minutes and 41.48 seconds in the men's 5,000m final, Damayanthi Kobala from Sri Lanka who defended her women's 400m title in 51.13 seconds and set the new Asiad record, and South Korean high-jumping hero Lee Jin-Taek who jumped over 2.23 meters.

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