MANILA, Sept 22: Distance runner Sun Yingjie struck gold for the second time as China left the rest of the field flailing at the Asian athletics championships on Monday.

The 24-year-old from Beijing, who is plotting to supplant her friend Wang Junxia as the best middle distance runner China has ever produced, picked up from her 10,000-meter win on Saturday to capture the women’s 5,000-meter title.

Her time of 15min 48.42sec was way off Wang’s eight-year-old meet record of 15:25.65, but was enough to hold off the Japanese pair of Yuko Manabe, who took silver, and Hiromi Fujii, who bagged the bronze.

On Saturday, Sun, bronze medallist at the 10,000 meters at the Paris World Championships last month, declared that within a year she intends to break Wang’s world record of 29:31.78, set in Beijing a decade ago.

China scooped four of the six gold medals up for grabs Monday to pad their total to 13 with 23 yet to be contested on the final day Tuesday.

Aside from Sun’s victory, Gu Yuan won the women’s hammer throw final, Han Yucheng ruled the men’s 20-kilometer walk, and Li Rongxiang took the javelin throw gold for men.

Japan picked up the men’s triple jump title through Kazuyozhi Ishihara while Grigoriy Yegorov won the men’s pole vault final for Kazakhstan on Monday.

The two countries joined Kuwait, Qatar, and Uzbekistan with two golds each after three days of competitions.

Results

5,000 meters Women

Final: 1. Sun Yingjie (Chn) 15mins 48.42secs; 2. Yuko Manabe (Jpn) 15:59.81; 3. Hiromi Fujii (Jpn) 16:31.18

Hammer throw Women

Final: 1. Gu Yuan (Chn) 70.78m; 2. Liu Yinghui (Chn) 66.66; 3. Masumi Aya (Jpn) 64.04

Triple jump Men

Final: 1. Kazuyoshi Ishikawa (Jpn) 16.72m; 2. Gu Junjie (Chn) 16.68; 3. Wu Ji 16.67

Pole vault Men

Final: 1. Grigoriy Yegorov (Kaz) 5.40m; 2. Satoru Yasuda (Jpn) 5.30; 3. Yang Mihui (Tpe) 5.10

Javelin throw Men

Final: 1. Li Rongxiang (Chn) 79.25m; 2. Yukifumi Murakami (Jpn) 77.04; 3. Sergey Voynov (Uzb) 76.09