MACAU, Nov 3: Japan more than doubled its gold-medal haul to 21 on Thursday with a scintillating performance on the track which breathed life into its East Asian Games campaign.

Japan’s distance runners set the pace in the morning before the sprinters blew away the competition with victories in both 4x100m relays.

Another one-two in the men’s and women’s 400m helped Japan claim 10 out of 13 athletics events and 11 from 18 overall as competition continued.

Runaway leader China, which dominated the first five days, snapped up the three remaining athletics titles to move its massive total on to 78 gold medals out of a possible 132.

Third-placed South Korea claimed three more golds to reach 14.

Japan’s distance runners enjoyed a bumper morning with Toshinari Fujimoto winning the men’s half-marathon in one hour, eight minutes and 14 seconds from South Korea’s Huh Jang-kyu.

Yoshiko Ichikawa won the women’s half-marathon in 1:16:31 and Yoshitaka Iwamizu took the men’s steeplechase.

China’s Chen Lisha, who won the women’s 200m on Wednesday, built up a huge lead in the 4x100 before Ni Xiaoli was pegged back by Rina Fukimaki on the third leg. Ayumi Suzuki closed out the win.

In the men’s relay, Taiwan also led until the third leg before being reeled in by Yusuke Omae and Shinya Saburi as Japan clocked 39.61. China finished third.

Yoshihiro Horigome led a Japanese gold-silver finish in the men’s 400m after leading from two-thirds of the way round. Asian Championships bronze medallist Asami Tanno won the women’s in 51.93.

Yasuhiro Tago fell on the first straight before recovering to finish second in the men’s 1,500m behind team-mate Hiroyuki Morikawa. Kaori Kumasaka duelled with China’s Xie Sainan before falling behind on the last bend in the women’s event.

On the field, Hiroaki Doi hurled the hammer 70.35 metres to win the men’s event and Takuro Mori won the pole vault at 5.30 metres after team-mate Satoru Yasuda and Zhang Hongwei failed to complete a jump.

For China, Asian champion Song Jian won the men’s long jump with 7.77 metres and Li Rongxiang won the javelin with 79.75.

China will hope for more luck in the swimming events late on Thursday when Asian record-holder Ouyang Kunpeng will take to the pool for the 200m backstroke.

China, aiming to top the medals table at the Beijing Olympics, has brought a mainly youthful squad with the exception of 11 Athens gold-medallists. Star athletes Liu Xiang, Guo Jingjing and Luo Xuejuan have already appeared here.

Meanwhile, China’s swimmers put in another record-breaking performance, sweeping seven of eight events to continue their success.

Zhang Lin, one night after smashing the Asian men’s 1,500m freestyle record to announce China’s re-emergence as a swimming power, took the 200m in a Games-best one minute, 48.64 seconds.

Asian record-holder Ouyang Kunpeng came from behind to snatch victory from Takashi Nakano in the 200m backstroke, also setting a new Games mark of 1:58.24.

Zhou Jiawei won the men’s 50m butterfly in a Games-record 23.98 while Gao Chang also set a new mark in the women’s 50m backstroke.—Agencies