China leads at Asian Athletics Champs
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-07-27 10:34
AMMAN - After two days' competition at the 17th Asian Athletics Championships here, China is leading the event with four gold medals, one silver and two bronzes by Thursday.
On Thursday, Chinese young player Liu Xiangrong claimed the title of women's shot put, increasing gold medals for Chinese team to four.
Liu ranked first after finishing the event with a 17.65-meter throw at the Amman International Stadium.
Chinese coach Sun You said China plays a leading role at the event of women's shot put in Asia, who has a result of two silver medals at Olympics.
Sun said some of China's leading player didn't come here for competition due to strained agenda to participate in the upcoming world athletics championships in Japan.
Earlier on Thursday morning, Chinese athlete Cui Zhide grabs the gold medal of men's 20km race walking at the Asian championships.
The competition, which began early in the morning to avoid the hot wave in the day, was mainly among walkers from China, South Korea and Kazakhstan.
Cui ranked first with finishing the race in one hour 30 minutes 21.3 seconds. South Korea's Shin Il-Yong won the silver and the bronze went to Rustem Kuwatov from Kazakhstan.
One day before, Cui's female teammate Jiang Qiuyan won the gold medal of women's 20km road walk, which is the first gold medal of the 17th Asian Athletics Championships that kicked off in the Jordanian captial on Wednesday.
During the first day's competition of the championships, China also won the gold medal of women's hammer throw.
Before the competition, Chinese team leader Kan Fulin said that the Chinese players are leading the event of hammer throw in Asia.
Liao Xiaoyan, 23, won the gold medal of women's hammer throw on Wednesday at the Amman International Stadium with a throw of 60.58 meters.
After two days' competition, Gulf state Qatar ranked second on the medal standings with two golds, one silver and two bronzes.
Samuel A. Francis from the Qatari team ranked first at men's 100m race with 9.99 seconds, breaking the Asian record of 10.00 seconds.
Another Qatari athlete Ahmad Hassan Abdullah got the gold medal at the event of men's 10,000 meters race in 29 minutes 45.95 seconds.
Saudi Arabia ranked third at the medal standing table on Thursday with two golds.
Meanwhile, two sports giants in Asia, namely South Korea and Japan, still have no gold medals after two days competitions of the championships. South Korea has got four silvers while Japan one silver and three bronzes as of Thursday.
About 450 athletes from 33 countries and regions in Asia have registered to participate in the competition from July 25 to 29.
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