by sportswriter Li Jia
NAGOYA, Japan, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) — China’s 13-year-old swimmer Yu Zidi accomplished a person occasion hat-trick on the 2026 Asian Games right here on Wednesday, whereas DPR Korea opened its gold medal account because of feminine weightlifters.
Yu continued her gorgeous efficiency on the Games, claiming her third gold by profitable the ladies’s 400m particular person medley after victories within the 200m fly and 200m IM. She led all the way in which to the touch in a Games report of 4:28.56.
“I gained a lot from this Asian Games but there were also some regrets,” she mentioned.
Meanwhile, 19-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo claimed his third title by profitable the boys’s 200m freestyle earlier than serving to China win the blended 4x100m medley relay for his fourth. Zhang surged within the ultimate meters to overhaul South Korea’s Hwang Sunwoo, setting a brand new Asian report of 1:43.49.
Also within the pool, Peng Xuwei received the ladies’s 100m backstroke in 59.30, whereas Yu Yiting edged out teammate Zhang Yufei by simply 0.03 seconds to win the ladies’s 100m butterfly in 56.41.
Adding to China’s medal haul, Tang Qianting set a Games report of 1:04.98 to win the ladies’s 100m breaststroke.
The solely remaining swimming gold the day went to Japan’s Shoon Mitsunaga in males’s 100m fly in a Games report time of fifty.56, who narrowly defeated China’s Xu Fang.
China superior to the quarterfinals of the boys’s soccer as group winner, after securing a 0-0 draw towards the United Arab Emirates in its ultimate group match.
Head coach Antonio Puche praised his squad’s resilience. “This group has been extremely difficult,” the Spaniard remarked. “Every match has been very tough, and today was not different.” China will subsequent face Thailand in Saturday’s quarterfinals.
The athletics competitors kicked off Wednesday with the boys’s and girls’s half-marathon race walks. China’s Shi Shengji claimed the boys’s gold medal, whereas Yang Liujing took the ladies’s crown.
In gymnastics, China defended each males’s and girls’s workforce titles, whereas in equestrian, Olympic rider Alex Hua Tian retained his particular person eventing title.
In desk tennis, China’s girls’s workforce superior to the ultimate after sweeping DPRK 3-0 within the semifinal. The males’s workforce equally dispatched Chinese Taipei 3-0, organising a gold-medal conflict towards host Japan. Meanwhile, blended doubles star pair Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha cruised previous Chinese Taipei’s Feng Yi-hsin and Yeh Yi-tian 3-0.
On the badminton courts, each China’s males’s and girls’s groups made the finals after beating India 3-1 and Indonesia 3-0 respectively. Women’s world No. 1 An Se-young received her singles match, however that is not sufficient to stop South Korea from dropping 3-1 to Japan within the girls’s workforce occasion.
China additionally continued its dominance in capturing. Jiang Yiting landed a commanding victory within the girls’s skeet competitors. She later teamed up along with her teammates to seize the workforce gold within the occasion. In the ladies’s 10m air pistol workforce occasion, China’s trio of Shen Yiyao, Jiang Ranxin and Yao Qianxun received one other gold.
Gao Xiaobin and Yao Yang every captured a wushu gold medal so as to add two extra to China’s medal tally.
DPR Korea lastly secured the delegation’s first two gold medals in weightlifting.
Ri Song Gum received the ladies’s 49kg class, setting three world information. She lifted 94kg within the snatch and 121kg within the clear and jerk for a dominant whole of 215kg.
“I’m really, really happy. I don’t even know how to put it into words,” mentioned Ri, who secured her third consecutive Asian Games title.
Later, Kang Hyon Gyong gave DPRK the second gold of the day within the girls’s 53kg. The 27-year-old lifted a complete of 223kg, breaking 5 Games information alongside the way in which.
After 4 days of competitors, China leads the medal desk with 48 gold, 20 silver and 10 bronze medals. Japan sits second with 15 gold, 25 silver and 27 bronze medals, adopted by South Korea with eight gold, eight silver and 25 bronze medals.