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Another Sweet Day for China at East Asian Games
Friday turned to be another sweet day for China as their women's basketball team took revenge over hosts Japan plus 15 more gold medals at the East Asian Games.
The Chinese women cagers, who lost to Japan in the preliminary round, looked like another team as they trounced the Japanese side 108-79 in the semifinals on Friday. The victory means that the Chinese would eventually win the title as the invited participants Australia won the other semifinal match against South Korea.
Again the track and field produced the most gold medals for China as their athletes grasped six gold medals out of nine finals on Friday.
Gao Shuying opened the golden day for China as she triumphed in the women's pole vault after clearing 4.20 meters.
Wei Jianhua soon made it double for China with a gold in the women's javelin throw, at 61.10 meters.
Wang Cheng edged Masaki Morinaga of Japan to take the men's long jump title with a jump of 8.07 meters. Morinaga was second at 8.02, followed by Chinese Huang Le, younger brother of former Asian record holder Huang Geng.
The women's 100m hurdles was a mere exhibition game for Feng Yun, who clocked 13.12 seconds for the title. Feng's teammate Su Yiping finished second at 13.33 and Kumiko Ikeda of Japan was third at 13.48.
Wang Yuanping ran a modest time of 2:03.21 but it was still good enough for her to take the women's 800m title. The silver and bronze medals were taken by two Japanese runners.
The women's 400m hurdles was also dominated by Chinese runners. Li Yulian beat teammate Song Yinglan for the title at 56.43. The bronze medal went to Makiko Yoshida of Japan.
The other three gold medals were split by Chinese Taipei, Japan and Kazakhstan.
Chen Tien-Wen won the first athletics gold for Chinese Taipei at the games. He clocked a winning time of 49.18 seconds for the title of the men's 400m hurdles.
The men's 800m was won by Mikhail Kolganov of Kazakhstan while the men's hammer throw title was taken by Koji Murofushi of Japan.
In the swimming competitions, China took an upper hand over Japan for the second time in the games, winning all the three women's finals while Japan only took home two golds and South Korea snatched its second gold in the sport.
Chinese women's swimmers won their third relay title, taking the 4X100 medley relay gold. Earlier in the tournament, they had won the 4X100m and 4X200m freestyle relays.
The Chinese quartet clocked 4:04.42, followed by South Korea in the second place at 4:13.43. The bronze medal went to Hong Kong of China with a time of 4:22.07.
The Japanese team touched home after China but was disqualified due to false start.
Qi Hui, who won the women's 200m backstroke event, took her second gold in the 200m individual medley. She was timed at 2:13. 09, followed by two Japanese Tomoko Hagiwara and Maki Mita in the second and third places respectively.
Chen Hua also added one gold to China's tally as she beat a strong challenge from Sachiko Yamada of Japan to touch home at 8: 32.61 in the women's 800m freestyle.
Japan won two gold medals in the men's events as Takashi Yamamoto triumphed in the 200m butterfly and Atsushi Nishikori won the 100m backstroke.
Yamamoto was timed at 1:57.45, followed by Xie Xueng of China and Yu Geong-Nam of South korea in the second and third places.
Nishikori clocked a winning time of 55.70 seconds in the 100m backstroke. The silver and bronze medals were taken by Ouyang Kunpeng and Yu Rui of China.
The other gold medal of the day was taken by South Korean Kim Min-Suk, who outsprinted his Japanese and Chinese opponents for the title of the men's 50m freestyle.
China also took the last two diving golds through Wu Minxia in the women's 3-meter springboard Li Chengwei in the men's platform.
Chinese women's judokas showed their depth in the women's events. Olympic silver medalist Li Shufeng beat her South Korean rival Lee Bok-hee in the 63kg class and Song Jianfeng defeated Australian Arlove Catherine in the 70kg class final.
The other three gold medal China won on Friday came from freestyle wrestling and Wushu.
After Friday's competitions, China has reached the target of surpassing the last games in medal tally with 68 gold medals. In the last Games held in Pusan, South Korea, China got a total of 62 gold medals.
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