Mon, Oct 02, 2023 page7

• S Korea crushes China’s badminton dreams

  • Reuters, HANGZHOU, China
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  South Korea yesterday crushed China’s dreams in the women’s team badminton final to take gold, but elsewhere at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, the hosts fared better, including setting a new world record on the way to gold in the women’s team trap shooting.

  The women’s team badminton final, which featured some of the top ranked players in the world, was hotly anticipated in China where the sport is hugely popular.

  First out was South Korea’s world No. 1 An Se-young, 21, against China’s world No. 3 and Tokyo Olympics singles champion Chen Yufei, 25.

  

  Taiwan’s Chen Tsai-chuan competes in the long jump portion of the women’s heptathlon at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, yesterday. She finished fourth in the long jump with a leap of 5.78m.

  Photo: AP

  Chen was no match for An, who won 2-0 (21-12, 21-13), before An’s teammates followed suit in the doubles and the other singles match, also with 2-0 wins, for South Korea to wrap up the tie 3-0.

  “I think maybe Chen was nervous,” An said after the match. “It’s the result of analyzing my opponent and training hard, but it was not an easy match to win.”

  At the shooting range, the Chinese women’s trap team of Li Qingnian, 42, Wu Cuicui, 35, and Zhang Xinqiu, 29, set a new world record of 357 points on their way to winning gold, eclipsing the previous world best of 354 points set by the US in 2018.

  

  South Korea’s Kim Ga-eun, left, reacts after beating China’s He Bingjiao, right, during the women’s team badminton final at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, yesterday.

  Photo: AFP

  In trap competitors wield shotguns and aim at clay-based targets being fired rapidly away from the shooter at different angles.

  The silver medal went to India, whose team included Rajeshwari Kumari, 31, daughter of acting president of the Olympic Council of Asia and former Asian Games champion in shooting, Randhir Singh.

  “I am very happy that she won, and I am very proud that she’s won the medal for India,” Singh said. “For me, [the emotion] is doubled because I’m the president and she wins the silver medal.”

  

  An official grabs his head, after his leg was injured by a stray hammer thrown by Ali Zankawi, left, who attempts to stem the bleeding during the men’s hammer throw final at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, on Saturday.

  Photo: AFP

  “The same thing happened in 1982 when my father [Bhalindra Singh] was [Asian Games Federation] president and I won a medal [at the Delhi Games]. So history is repeating itself and the legacy for the family in the sport continues,” he said.

  The Asian Games are at the halfway point of their two-week run. China continues to thoroughly dominate and reached 120 golds on Sunday. The rest of the field had won a total of 137 gold medals.

  China has won about four times more gold medals than its nearest competitors from Japan and South Korea, and about twice as many overall medals as each of those two teams.

  On Saturday, an athletics official sustained a broken leg and serious bleeding after being hit by a misthrown hammer, but his vital signs are now stable, a spokesman for the Games said yesterday.

  Just before 8pm on Saturday, Kuwait’s Ali Zankawi lined up for one of his throws in the men’s hammer final at the eastern Chinese city’s packed Olympic stadium, but instead of soaring straight onto the outfield, the hammer flew out sideways and low to the right, smashing into the leg of the sitting technical official.

  Looking horrified, Zankawi sprinted over as blood began spurting from the official’s right leg. The official, Huang Qinhua, 62, grimaced and swayed dizzily as Zankawi rushed to check on him, blood shooting out of the wound.

  Within seconds Zankawi was using his huge hands and strength to improvise a tourniquet on Huang’s thigh and halt the bleeding. Medical personnel soon took Huang away on a stretcher after applying a tourniquet, then sent him to a nearby hospital.

  Additional reporting by AP
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