China on top of world as gold run continues

By Ma Yue  |   2008-8-14  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

WHILE American Michael Phelps continued to make waves in the pool, China's diving stars were enjoying their time as well, scooping yet another gold.

China now sits atop the medal table with a rich harvest of 17 golds, boosted by success in gymnastics, diving, shooting and weightlifting. The United States, led by Phelps, was second with 10 gold medals, followed by South Korea with six.

Phelps swam into history yesterday as the only athlete to win 11 career gold medals. He has already smashed five world records in the Beijing pool.

The American came in early yesterday to grab the 200m butterfly and followed it up an hour later with another record-shattering win in the 4x200m freestyle relay.

Pang Jiaying was China's best swimmer when she took the bronze in the women's 200m freestyle.

For China, the women gymnasts ended the decades-long dominance of the United States, Russia and Romania by emerging victors in the team event, matching their male counterparts who took the crown in the same event on Tuesday.

The Chinese girls had never won the gold before. They were led from the front yesterday by their 20-year old captain Cheng Fei, who was the only one with Olympic experience. The rest of the members - He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan, Li Shanshan, Yang Yilin and Deng Linlin - were all making their Olympic debut.

Having endured criticism over his team selection, coach Lu Shanzhen was beaming. "The result proved that our strategy was right," Lu said. "We had a huge advantage especially on the uneven bars, which was what we took into consideration when selecting the team."

Chinese divers extended their dominance in the pool as Qin Kai and Wang Feng grabbed another gold with an easy win in the men's synchronized 3-meter springboard. Their total score of 469.08 was a whopping 47.1 points ahead of the Russian silver medalists.