Olympics: Asian swimmers steal spotlight

Thursday, 14 August 2008

BEIJING - Asian swimmers stole the spotlight from Michael Phelps and the rest of the field Thursday as the region's traditional powers came good.

Japan's breaststroke king Kosuke Kitajima posted an unprecedented 100m/200m double for the second Olympics in a row, establishing himself as one of the world's best ever.

Kitajima, who won the 100m breaststroke on Monday in world-record time, won the 200m in 2:07.64, just outside the world record of 2:07.51 he set in Tokyo in June.

"I wasn't thinking about winning two gold medals at the two consecutive Olympic Games," Kitajima said.

"What I wanted to do is show my best performance here in Beijing.

"I'm so relieved," he added. "I'm glad that I won this race. I was going to improve my time a bit more but to win this race is more important than to set a good time."

Hosts China took a leaf out of Kitajima's book with Liu Zige and Jiao Liuyang shocking the swimming community by winning gold and silver in the women's 200 metres butterfly.

It was a remarkable achievement given they have done little before, with Liu clocking two minutes 04.18 seconds to shave over a second off the previous world record held by Australian Jessicah Schipper.

Her time was 3.5 seconds faster than her swim at the Chinese trails in April. Jiao's time was also under the old world mark, leaving Schipper to trail home in third place.

"I didn't feel pressure before the competition, I tried to relax," said Liu.

"And in the race I just swam at my own pace, not caring about others. My coach said to me that we will have two Chinese swimmers in the final, so you don't need to force yourself to win gold, you just need to try your best."

Jiao added: "The pressure was much less. We swam together and I felt like we were in training."

It was China's first swimming gold of the Games and only its third since its prime at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, when it won four.

A shooting gold for Du Lin and the All-Round gymnastics title for Yang Wei left China atop of the medal table with 20 gold. South Korea remains in third with six gold while Japan have five.

Among other Asian nations, Thailand, India and North Korea have all won one gold each while Vietnam has a silver, and Indonesia and Taiwan both have two bronze.

While Japan found success in the pool Thursday, Keiji Suzuki joined the list of big name flops at the judo competition.

Suzuki, who stepped up to +100kg in Athens to claim a sensational gold medal, was back fighting at his preferred -100kg, the weight at which he won the world title in 2005.

He came up against Mongolia's Naidan Tuvshinbayar in the first round and was stunned by a morote-gari - a double leg grab similar to a rugby tackle - within a minute of the contest's start.

Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei remains on track to win his country's first ever Olympic gold medal after steamrolling over Indonesia's Sony Dwi Kuncoro 21-9, 21-11 to make the badminton semi-finals.

With Malaysia's doubles stars and Lee's girlfriend Wong Mew Choo crashing out, Lee is the nation's last remaining hope in badminton and its strongest chance of winning its first gold in any sport.

Lee, ranked two in the world, played down his chances of causing an upset over China to clinch gold, saying they had home ground advantage.

"Maybe it's too tough for me but I try," he said of possibly reaching the final where, barring a major upset, he would meet world number one Lin Dan.