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 Guo Yan serves the ball during China's match against Singapore in the women's table tennis team final at the Asian Games in Guangzhou on Tuesday. Bobby Yip / Reuters |
GUANGZHOU - The Republic of Korea's (ROK) superstar Park Tae-hwan crushed China's Zhang Lin in an Olympic swimming rematch on Tuesday as Li Na led the host to the women's team tennis gold and Chinese Taipei clinched the men's title.
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A day after fading Japanese Olympic champion Kosuke Kitajima flopped in the pool, Park emphatically won his second gold in Guangzhou, having already collected the 200m freestyle title.
The 21-year-old led from the start and was under world-record pace for much of the race, only to ease up and clock 3:41.53 - his best time in two years - ahead of China's Sun Yang.
It left Zhang, who he beat in the Beijing Olympics final, trailing in a disappointing third.
"It feels good to have led the whole race and finish it with a good time," said Park, who won three gold, a silver and three bronze medals at the last Asiad in Doha four years ago.
He added that his fast time was a bonus.
"That is the result of all my training this year," he said.
Zhang, the reigning 800m freestyle world champion, admitted he was well beaten again.
"Everyone knows that I have work to do," he said. "I was in really bad form."
In another pool highlight, Japan's Ryosuke Irie won his second gold of the games, adding the 100m backstroke crown to the 200m he won on Monday.
On the tennis courts, world No 11 Li led her country to women's team success with a crushing victory over defending champion Chinese Taipei.
Li overpowered Chan Yung-jan 6-1, 6-1 while Peng Shuai saw off Chang Kai-chen 6-3, 7-5.
"At the last Asian Games in Doha in 2006 we lost in the quarterfinals to Uzbekistan, so this time we were fully prepared," said Li, a semifinalist at the Australian Open and quarterfinalist at Wimbledon.
The Chinese Taipei's men's team soon made amends, shrugging off the absence of injured Wimbledon quarterfinalist Lu Yen-hsun to beat Uzbekistan 2-1.
China was on fire at the table tennis, winning both the men's and women's team titles, against the ROK and Singapore respectively, in a sport it dominates.
It was sweet revenge for the women after Singapore shocked the reigning champions in the Moscow world championships in May in what was billed as one of the greatest upsets of all time.
Two spectacular pile-ups marred the final of an incident-packed women's points race on the cycling track, leaving one rider with a dislocated shoulder, a medal winner in tears and several needing hospital treatment.
China's Liu Xin won, but that was not the major talking point.
A first crash that saw all the riders back on their bikes was proceeded by a huge smash that left several riders dazed and strewn across the track, with several unable to continue, as coaches and medics rushed to their aid.
Having taken a heavy tumble at speed, Hong Kong's Wong Wan Yiu gingerly got back on her bike and completed the race to take silver in what her coach called "a miracle".
Agence France-Presse
(China Daily 11/17/2010 page12)
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