October 9, 2002	Wednesday	Sha’aban 2, 1423

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

BUSAN (South Korea), Oct 8: Saudi Arabia, China, India and Kazakhstan struck double gold in Asian Games athletics Tuesday and home fans had a lot to cheer with South Korea advancing in baseball and winning at table tennis.

On the second day of track action in Busan, Saudis Jamal Al-Saffar and Hadi Somayli won gold in the 100 metres and 400 hurdles after Makhld Al-Otaibi’s 10,000 victory on Monday.

Sri Lanka’s top runner Susantika Jayasinghe won the women’s 100 metres and Japan’s Koji Murofishi retained his hammer title.

India’s Bahadur Singh Sagoo won the men’s shot put gold with his only successful attempt of 19.03 metres on his second throw. India also won the women’s 800 metres with K M Beenamol finishing in two minutes 4.17 seconds, ahead of compatriot Madhuri A Singh with Uzbekistan’s Zamira Amirova securing the bronze.

South Korea’s gold-medal favourite baseball team stayed unbeaten with a 7-2 win over China to set up a final showdown on Wednesday against Taiwan, who beat Japan 6-5 in 10 innings.

The medals table has firmed up with China holding an insurmountable lead at 106 golds, followed by South Korea with 52 and Japan with 35. Kazakhstan are in fourth with 13 golds.

In soccer, a first-half penalty from captain Lee Dong-gook gave hosts South Korea a 1-0 win over Bahrain to set up a semifinal against defending champions Iran.

The Iranians beat Kuwait 1-0 thanks to a superb free kick from midfielder Eman Mobali, despite playing without top striker Ali Daei, who returned home earlier in the day after his father died late on Monday.

Striker Satoshi Nakayama snatched a 61st minute winner as Japan beat China 1-0 to secure a place in the last four for the first time since 1970. They next play Thailand, who ran out 1-0 winners over North Korea in their quarter-final.

The tiny monarchy of Qatar, whose capital Doha will host the next Asian Games in 2006, finally entered the gold medal table with titles in the men’s individual and team skeet shooting.

Hosts South Korea tightened their grip on second place in the medals table with golds in wrestling, cycling, equestrian dressage and table tennis.

In the women’s doubles, South Korea’s Lee Eun-sil and Seok Eun-mi came from two sets down to beat the Chinese duo Zhang Yining and Li Nan for the hosts’ second table tennis gold following their win in mixed doubles.

The table tennis success of others has come at the expense of China, who have slipped since they swept six golds in the 1998 Games and all the golds in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics.

But Taiwan’s Yuan Shu-chi surprised South Korea’s Yun Mi-jin, double gold medallist in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, to win the women’s individual archery gold medal. The South Koreans had targetted a sweep of al golds on offer in Busan.

Tang Gonghong joined the parade of world-record-setting Chinese weightlifters — twice surpassing the mark in the women’s over 75 kg clean and jerk en route to a gold medal.

The 23-year-old from Shandong made it three world records in three days for China’s women, as she lifted 165.5kg in her second attempt in the jerk, then hoisted 167.5 kg in her third try.

On Monday, team mate Sun Ruiping set world records in the women’s 75 kg class in snatch, clean and jerk and total — duplicating the triple-record feat achieved by Liu Chunhong on the previous day.