| Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 19, 2001 |
Day 7 Round-up: More Golds for Ma's Runners, Guangdong Swimmers |
 Runners of the famed Chinese athletics team "Ma's Family Army" from Liaoning Province won their specialty track events while swimmers of Guangdong Province rose atop the swimming medal tally with two more titles at the Ninth National Games Sunday in Guangzhou.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Coach Ma Junren
Runners of "Ma's Family Army" and swimmers of Guangdong Province won more goldsRunners of the famed Chinese athletics team "Ma's Family Army" from Liaoning Province won their specialty track events while swimmers of Guangdong Province rose atop the swimming medal tally with two more titles at the Ninth National Games Sunday in Guangzhou.
Records of track events
Lan Lixin disqualified in blood test
The disqualification of Lan Lixin from the quadrennial games on Friday had seemingly not much disrupted others of the team famed for their record-breaking female runners. The team is so named as it had been led by Ma Junren, one of the country's most successful and, identically, most controversial coaches.
Lan, 22, was asked to quit the national games for an abnormal blood test result. Ma and other provincial sports officials had blamed a wrong medicine, which Lan had been taking since last August to increase the calcium content in her blood. Lan, runner- up at the 1997 national games, had been entered in the three events including 10,000m at the games here.
Li Na and Gong Ke won golds
Ma's contingent, however, proved again to be a force to be seriously taken on the track of the Olympic Stadium.
Lin Na won the title of women's 1,500-meter
Li Na and Gong Ke of the northeastern Chinese province won the women's 1,500 meters and men's 10,000m races, in four minutes 7.06 seconds and 28:59.21, both being no records whatsoever.
Sun Ripeng losed
But the seemingly invincible "Army" was upset during the heats for men's 3,000m steeplechase event, when Liaoning's two-time and defending national games champion Sun Ripeng, 27, failed even to make the final, finishing seventh and last in Heat 1. His time was 4.13 seconds behind his national record.
The skin-headed runner locked himself in the dressing room to calm himself down, before coming out into the bright sunshine.
others
After three starting fouls by others, Yin Hanzhao of Guangdong won the men's 100m race in 10.25 seconds, followed by teammate Liu Yang in an identical time.
Double gold-medalist from the 1997 national games and defending champion Li Xuemei from Sichuan took the women's 100m title in 11. 14 seconds, followed by teammate Liu Xiaomei in 11.22 and Hainan's Chen Yueqin in 11.42.
Records of swimming events
Guangdong aggregated at eight golds
In the swimming pool, Chen Xiujun and Zhou Jiawei both from Guangdong Province, won the women's 200m breaststroke and men's 100m butterfly, in 2:11.06 and 53.89. Guangdong has now aggregated at eight gold medals out of the pool.
Zhang Liang won her third title
Zhang Liang of the Chinese Army became the most decorated swimmer so far at the games, after she won her third title here, clocking a new Asian record time of 8:26.48 in the women's 800m freestyle on Sunday. She beat Chen Hua of Zhejiang, holder of the previous Asian mark, by six hundredths of a second. Chen finished second in 8:26.54.
Zhang has won the earlier 200m and 400m freestyle races, both in the world's fastest time of the year.
Jiang Chengji won 50m freestyle title
Veteran swimmer Jiang Chengji, winner of a record of five gold medals at last national games back in his hometown Shanghai, bid farewell to the pool by winning the 50m freestyle title in 22.56. Jiang, who turns 27 a week later, finished fourth in both 50m and 100m freestyle races in the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, which represented the best ever Olympic performance by any male Chinese swimmer.
Tian Liang won his second title
Tian Liang from Sha'anxi Province, Olympic champion for both individual and synchronized platform events last year in Sydney, won his second medal at the current national games, by taking the plaformt event with 772.47 points. Tian's team won the third place in the earlier team competition. Tian was also a two-time World Cup winnner.
Monday will see more actions for a total of 29 gold medals on offer for eight sports and events, including badminton, track and field and cycling.
|
|
|
|