Macao make flying start at East Asian Games
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-10-31 05:23

Yang Lian of China lifts during the women's weightlifting 48kg in the clean and jerk event at the 4th East Asian Games in Macao, China, yesterday. Yang won the gold medal and shattered the world record for the event.(Reuters) 

MACAO: Payday has come early.

Macao reaped early dividends for the costly nine-year's of work it has put into hosting the East Asian Games, with host athletes nabbing six gold medals yesterday.

China, set to dominate the nine-day games, built up a head of steam grabbing 21 golds, including one from diving queen Guo Jingjing and a weightlifting gold for Yang Lian who demolished a world record on the way.

Other participants Japan, South Korea, DPR Korea, Mongolia, Guam, Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong are all so far without golds.

To prove Macao is more than a gambling enclave, the games organizers spent US$375 million on sports venues including the super-modern Macao Dome, which cost US$75 million.

At three previous games, Macao won only one gold and five bronzes, twice placing last in the medals tables.

Huang Yanhui set Macao off to a flying start as the 24-year-old put up a fast and furious display of southern Chinese fist fighting in the Nanquan event and won the games' first gold.

Huang, who moved to Macao from southeast China's Fujian Province three years ago, scored 9.75 points. Japan's Erika Kojima took the silver with 9.62 and Chen Shaochi of Chinese Taipei won bronze with 9.40.

Macao sports official Pun Wenkun said Huang's gold proved Macao was no longer a sporting nobody.

Qi Zhijian followed Huang with the men's 60kg-class Sanshou (combat) title and Jia Rui walked away as the men's Changquan (long boxing) champion.

China bagged nine golds on Wushu's first day of medal competition.

Macao athletes also grabbed three golds in dragon boat racing, with the other five events all being won by China.

China swept the board in yesterday's weightlifting competition as Lu Jinbi and Zhang Xiangxiang took the men's 56kg and 62kg class and Yang Lian broke a world record to win the women's 48g division.

Yang, 21, bettered the clean-and-jerk world record by one kilogram with a 117kg heave. Her winning total was 207kg.

"I felt relaxed today," Yang said. "An East Asian Games gold is good, an Olympic gold will be even better."

Guo Jingjing, one of 11 Chinese Olympic champions competing here, beat teammate Ma Qianli by 23.85 points in the women's 1m springboard final.

The 24-year-old Guo, hugely popular with Macao media and mobbed on her arrival, scored 319.59 points, ahead of Ma with 295.74 and Japan's Ryokyo Nishii with 292.53.

Luo Yutong dominated the 3m springboard and Chang Jiang/Wang Liang grabbed the men's 10m synchronized platform event.

China won the men's gymnastics team crown with 227.846 points with Japan and South Korea finishing second and third.

In basketball, China beat Japan on two fronts, with the men's side winning 70-57 and the women's squad squeezing through 73-72.

Chinese Taipei won both their men's and women's games, beating Hong Kong's men 57-55 and crushing DPRK's women 96-63.

In the other men's game, South Korean downed Mongolia 86-57.

China and Macao also dominated dragon boat racing competitions yesterday, sharing the eight gold medals at stake in the sport that makes its debut in the regional multi-sports event

China swept all four races in the standard boat category (men's 250m and 500m, women's 250m and 500m) and added another in the small boat category, the women's 500m race. The hosts claimed the men's 250m and 500m and women's 250m races in the small boat category.

(China Daily 10/31/2005 page5)