INCHEON: Sun Yang stormed past his rivals to an emphatic 400 metres freestyle win as a resurgent Chinese swim team cleaned up in the pool by scooping six of seven gold medals on offer on Tuesday, while Asian Games was rocked by its first positive drugs test.

The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) said in a statement that Tajikistan footballer Khurshed Beknazarov had tested positive for a stimulant and had been thrown out of the Games.

“His urine specimen collected on 14 September 2014 after the competition was found to contain methylhexaneamine, a prohibited substance in the WADA Prohibited List 2014,” the OCA said.

Beknazarov, who played in Tajikistan’s 1-0 win over Singapore in the football preliminaries that day, also had his accreditation withdrawn, the OCA added.

On the fourth day of competition in Incheon, China’s sleek swimmers and sharp shooters helped them reach the 40 gold medal mark, while hosts South Korea kept their noses in front of fierce rivals Japan.

South Korea, who are aiming to finish runner-up to China for a fifth straight Games and win 90 gold medals, have earned 19 so far, three more than third-placed Japan.

India’s Vitalacharya Sunil Sowmarpet (L) dribbles past Ahmed Said Salmeen Nofali of Oman during their field hockey match on Tuesday. India won 7-0.—AFP

Japan, who led the swimming medal standings after two days, were virtually shut out as Sun helped give China a commanding 11-7 lead in the gold medal stakes in the ultra-competitive swimming events.

China’s dominating night in the pool was highlighted by Sun’s return to the top of the podium.

The world and Olympic champion hit back from his shock 200m loss to Kosuke Hagino to dominate the Japanese and South Korea’s Park Tae-Hwan, winning comfortably by 1.3 seconds.

“I’m very happy to have won this gold and I’m also very happy to be competing with these two. We three are strong opponents and this level of competition is an excellent trend for Asian swimming,” said Sun, who skipped a relay Monday due to a sore hand.

“This was a tough race. For the first 200 we three were pretty much neck-and-neck. So I just pushed hard and put my injury to the side and grabbed this gold. So overall, I’m pretty satisfied.”

LIN Dan of China celebrates after scoring a point against South Korea’s Lee Dong-geun during the men’s team badminton final at the Asian Games.—AP

Olympic champion Ye Shiwen crushed the competition in the women’s 400m medley while China’s women also took gold in the 50m backstroke, 100m butterfly and 4x200m freestyle relay and Ning Zetao won the men’s 50m freestyle.

The only blemish on an otherwise perfect night in the pool for China came in the men’s 200m breaststroke, where Kazakhstan teenager Dmitry Balandin slashed nearly six seconds off his best time to win gold.

The same situation played out at the Ongnyeon International Shooting Range, where the Kazakh women’s trap team prevented a Chinese clean sweep.

Eighteen-year-old shooting sensation Yang Haoran led a sweep of the men’s 10m air rifle event as the world champion claimed the individual title after helping China to team gold.

Team-mate Cao Yifei picked up the silver, conceding the lead to Yang in the last two shots of a well-contested eight-man final.

While China continues to gorge on gold, Thailand savoured its first success when Yannaphon Larp Apharat won the men’s bowling singles title, and Abdullah Al Muzayen struck gold for Kuwait in the men’s squash final with an upset win over top-seeded Saurav Ghosal of India.

On the women’s side, world number one Nicol David fought back from a game down against fellow Malaysian Low Wee Wern to capture her fourth singles title, 16 years after winning her first in Bangkok in 1998, before hinting that squash’s campaign to get on the Olympic programme in 2020 might not be dead after all.

“Maybe there’s a chance or not, we just have to wait and see,” the 31-year-old said. “I hope to be involved some way to help the sport get in, even if I’m not competing anymore. I just want to see a squash player on the medal podium at the Olympics.”

Another rush of weightlifting records saw Taiwan’s Lin Tzu-chi break two world bests to win the women’s 63kg, while China’s Lin Qingfeng took gold in the men’s 69kg.

China’s world and Olympic champion Lyu Xiaojun summoned up a glorious final lift, staggering to his haunches but then recovering with sheer determination to clean and jerk 200kg and win the men’s 77kg.

China also won the synchronized swimming free combination ahead of Japan and Kazakhstan.

The judo medals were split, with South Korea beating Kazakhstan for the men’s team final, and Japan downing South Korea in the women’s.

Japan’s Yuya Kamoto stormed to victory in the men’s gymnastics all-around, followed by team-mate Masayoshi Yamamoto and South Korea’s Lee Sang-wook while China’s Yao Jinnan won the women’s title.

South Korea beat China in fencing, winning both the women’s team saber and men’s team epee gold medal bouts.

And the hosts enjoyed the perfect end to the action on Tuesday when their men’s badminton team stunned China to take gold.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2014