MANILA, Sept 23: Qatari world champion Saif Saeed Shaheen was humiliated twice as China went on a final day gold rush to emerge top overall at the Asian athletics championships here on Tuesday.

Abdulrahman Amri Abdelaziz ambushed his Qatari compatriot Shaheen, the world 3,000-metre steeplechase champion, on the last straight to flash home in 13 minutes 58.89 seconds in the men’s 5,000 metres final, beating his Kenyan-born countryman by three hundredths of a second.

It was the second time that suspect tactics proved Shaheen’s undoing. The 20-year-old previously known as Stephen Cherono also failed in the men’s 1,500 metres on Sunday, placing second to Bahraini Rashid Ramzi after sprinting too early.

The Qatari pair peeled away from the rest of the field at the 2,800 metres mark, with Shaheen, wearing wraparound shades, glancing behind anxiously every few paces at 20 year-old Abdelaziz who was tucked in snugly in his slipstream.

Shaheen had also elected not to run his favourite steeplechase discipline that was eventually won by compatriot Khamis Abdulla.

The Qatari men also won the 800 metres through Adam Abdu Adam Ali in a new meet record, the shot put through Bilal Saad Mubarak, and the 400 metres hurdles through Mobarak Sultan al-Nobi to finish the championships in second place with six golds.

The Chinese grabbed six golds on Tuesday to raise their four-day tally to 19.

Ha Mingming and Huang Xiaoxiao led the charge with championship record-setting performances in the women’s 20km walk and 400 metres hurdles respectively.

Ma Ning won the javelin gold for women, Wang Zhouzhou the men’s high jump, and Chinese teams picked up the men’s 4x100 and women’s 4x400 relay titles.

Sprinter Lyubov Perepelova of Uzbekistan, Myanmar track star Yin Yin Khine, and Kuwait’s Fawzi Al Shammari all picked up their second individual golds.

Perepelova completed the sprint double by winning the women’s 200 metres final, Yin Yin Khine added to her 400 metres gold by winning the women’s 800 metres final, and Al Shammari picked up the men’s 200 metres gold to add to his 400 metres title.

Vitaliy Smirnov won the decathlon title to help Uzbekistan to third place overall with four golds.

Kuwait emerged fourth with three golds, one more than Kazakhstan.

Saudi Arabia won their first gold when Hussain al-Saba took the men’s long jump title, while Sri Lanka and Thailand also joined the winners with victories in relay events.

The Sri Lankans made up for the double loss of women sprint stars Susanthika Jayasinghe and Damayanthi Darsha through injuries as their men’s 4x400m relay team took gold.

The Thai women collected the 4x100 metres relay title.

Results of finals:

MEN’S: