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September 21, 2014

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North Korean lifter breaks record

NORTH Korea’s Om Yun Chol beat his own world record in the men’s 56-kilogram clean and jerk by 1 kilogram yesterday to grab weightlifting gold on the first day of competition at the Asian Games in Incheon.

Om, the 2012 Olympic champion and 2013 world champion, lifted 170kg yesterday to earn North Korea’s first gold medal at the Games. Om also had a combined total of 298kg to mark an Asiad record after lifting 128kg in the snatch.

North Korea has 150 athletes competing in 14 sports at the Games in the South Korean city of Incheon, where they are being cheered by locals despite the bitter hostility between their governments dating from the 1950-53 Korean War.

Margarita Yelisseyeva of Kazakhstan won the other weightlifting gold in the women’s 48kg category with a combined weight of 194kg.

At the end of the first day, host South Korea topped the medal table with five golds and a total of 13 medals. Powerhouse China was second with five golds and 11 medals overall. Mongolia came third with two golds, one silver and one bronze.

South Korea dominated in fencing, winning both gold and silver in the men’s epee individual and women’s saber individual. Lee Ra-jin edged teammate Olympic gold medalist Kim Ji-yeon for saber gold, while Olympic bronze medalist Jung Jin-sun beat teammate Park Kyong-doo in the epee.

“It was pressuring at first because the fencing matches were placed at the beginning of the Asian Games,” Jung said. “But if we get to the end in this condition, I think we will be able to win eight, nine or even 10 gold medals.”

Kim said she was only slightly disappointed to have lost to another South Korean fencer.

“It’s true that I used up a lot of energy in the semifinal round, but I’d like to think that I lost because Lee Ra-jin played well,” Kim said.

Two bronzes were awarded in both events, split between fencers from China, Vietnam and Singapore.

Both of Mongolia’s golds came in judo, with Tumurkhuleg Davaadorj winning the men’s 66kg class and Urantsetseg Munkhbat taking the women’s 48kg. Japan’s Misato Nakamura won the women’s 52kg class and Yeldos Smetov took gold in the men’s 60 kg.

In women’s football, highly favored North Korea downed minnow Hong Kong 5-0.

In cycling, China and South Korea split the golds in the team sprint, with the host winning the men’s competition and China taking the women’s.

China also struck gold in synchronized swimming, with Sun Wenyan and Huang Xuechen, leaving the silver to Japan and bronze to Kazakhstan.

Yesterday was the start of 15 days of competition involving 9,500 athletes from 45 nations and regions, and with 439 gold medals on offer across 36 different sports.

China, which won a record 199 golds at the 2010 Games, led the table for most of the day before being caught by the hosts, who got off to a bad start when China, led by the unheralded Zhang Mengyuan, beat them to the Games’ first gold in the women’s 10-meter air pistol.

Zhang is only ranked 29th in the world but after helping win the team 10m air pistol title, she beat South Korea’s hot favorite Jung Jee-hae into second place.

Chinese coach Wang Yifu said her triumph was doubly impressive as organizers had “deliberately” arranged the 10m air pistol as the first event, hoping for a home victory.

Army sharpshooter Jitu Rai held his nerve on the final shot to snatch 50m pistol gold from Vietnam’s Nguyen Hoang Phuong and put India amongst the golds.

On day two today, Chinese swimming superstar Sun Yang will meet South Korea’s Park Tae-hwan in the first of three explosive races in the pool.

And China will want to find an immediate response after coming off second best to South Korea on the first day of full competition.

“We have been leading both medal and gold medal tables at nine straight Asian Games,” said China’s delegation chief Liu Peng. “We certainly want to keep winning this time.”




 

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