Central Chinese city of Wuhan and southern metropolis of Guangzhou dominated the rowing events at the 6th Chinese City Games by finishing first in 10 of the 16 heats on Wednesday.
Host city Wuhan made a good start by leading in six heats: lightweight men's double sculls and quad sculls, lightweight men's pair and four, men's single sculls and women's four.
Guangzhou finished in first place in the heats of lightweight women's double sculls and quad sculls, men's four and quad sculls.
Eastern city of Nanjing led in women's single sculls and men's pair heats and southeastern coastal city of Xiamen won first place in the women's pair and men's eight heats.
Northeastern cities of Shenyang and Dalian finished first in the women's eight and quad sculls respectively.
"Chinese young rowers are giving better and better results as the nation invests much more than before in promoting the sport, and this is especially true to those from Guangzhou, Wuhan and Nanjing," said Ji Renxu, a coach of the Nanjing rowing team.
"The crews from the three cities are expected to grab 90 percent of the medals in the rowing competitions at the City Games," Ji added.
The second day of the four-day rowing tournament saw steady start of the medallists at the 2007 World Rowing Junior Championships held in Beijing this August.
Xue Feng and Jin Shengjun of Nanjing clocked a time of seven minutes 11.52 seconds to beat Han Wei and Zhong Xiaotao of Wuhan to the second in the men's pair heat.
Xue and Jin won gold in the same competition at the 2007 World Rowing Junior Championships where Han and Zhong took silver in the men's double sculls.
Ni Chaoqun of Nanjing, who won junior championships in the women's pair this year, finished first in the women's single sculls heat in 8:16.77, more than 10 seconds clear of the second finisher.
Despite the convincing lead, Ni acknowledged the competition at the City Games is far more fiercer than that at the World Junior Championships.
"Here we are all full-time rowers and we train very hard," the 18-year-old said, "while at the Junior Championships, many of our foreign rivals are amateurs."
Source: Xinhua
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