BUSAN, South Korea, 10 October — Saudi Arabia overshadowed China’s superiority in track and field by a continuing medal rush as triple jumper Salem Mouled Al-Mowallad won the Saudi Arabia’s fourth gold and his countryman Hamdan O. Al-Bishi took silver in 400 meters in a desperate finish in which he was caught on the line by Fawzi Al-Shammari of Kuwait.
Al-Mowallad was favorite to win the men’s triple jump and duly delivered with 16.60 meters on his fifth attempt to beat the 16.57 set by Lao Jianfeng of China with his second jump. Japan’s Takashi Komatsu (16.34) was third.
The men’s 400 had produced an exciting finish at the Asian championships in Colombo last August and was close again with Al-Shammari beating Al-Bishi by 0.02 seconds to equal the Games record of 44.93. Sri Lanka’s Rohan Pradeep Handunpurage took bronze.
Al-Bishi, 21, stormed from the blocks and seemed to have the race sealed, before Al-Shammari pushed his aching body for one last effort to win by a nose and equal the games record of 44.93sec.
"I accelerated hard at 300 because I knew Al-Bishi could turn up the pace in the last 100.
"I just pushed and pushed. For me it’s been a great season and my goal after some time off is the world championships in Paris next year."
Al-Bishi, a former world junior champion, admitted he misjudged the race, pushing too hard early and "in the last 100m I just couldn’t accelerate".
Both runners have been on top form this season, but yesterday’s victory means Al-Shammari has now beaten his Saudi rival in their last three races.
"I knew I had to push it hard in the last 10 meters. I beat him at the line in March this year and I was lucky to be able to do it again here," said Al-Shammari, who followed his victory by running in the 200 heats to reach tomorrow’s final.
"Running the 200 heats after the 400 on the same day was a problem but I managed to conserve enough energy. The 400 is my specialist event. The 200 will be a bonus, but I still want a medal."
Al-Shammari had previously struck a lean patch at the Grand Prix final in Paris, where he finished eighth, but recovered to take third place at the Madrid World Cup.
Bahrain’s Rashid Mohamed destroyed the men’s 800 meters field, including pre-race favorites Adam Abdu Adam Ali and Salam Al-Badri Amer of Qatar, to win in one minute 47.12 seconds.
The silver went to India’s 21-year-old K M Binu (1:47.57), making his first appearance at a major senior international event after his older sister K M Beenamol won the 800 gold on Tuesday, while China’s Li Huiquan (1:47.77) took the bronze.
"I expected to win gold but I was surprised at how tough it was," said Mohamed. "This gold is a first step on the road to Athens for me. Yesterday I won comfortably but I’m sure I can build on this in the future."
China’s Liu Xiang won the men’s 110 meters hurdles and tied the Games record of 13.30 seconds. The silver went to Japan’s 30-year-old Satoru Tanigawa (13.83), who was fifth at the Bangkok Asiad, and South Korea’s Lee Jung-ho (13.89) took the bronze.
Qatar’s Khamis Abdullah Saifeldin lived up to pre-race expectations with victory in the men’s 3,000 meters steeplechase in a Games record of eight minutes 30.52 seconds.
Qatar’s Abubaker Ali Kamal won the silver and Japan’s Yoshitaka Iwamizu picked up the bronze.
Asian record holder Hassan Al-Asmari of Saudi Arabia, the pre-race co-favorite with Saifeldin, was a disappointing seventh, while the winner in Bangkok four years ago, Japan’s Yasunori Uchitomi, placed fifth.
The Chinese retained their women’s pole vault title as Gao Shuying, who at 179 cms lives up to her name which means tall, literally towered over the rest of the field with a Games record height of 4.35 meters, not far off her 4.43 season’s best.
Gao’s main threat came from Japan’s Masumi Ono, who added another silver to the medal she won in Bangkok in a national record she had equaled to take silver in Colombo.
The bronze went to China’s Qin Xia by virtue of one less failed attempt at 3.80 meters than Japan’s Takayo Kondo.
Li Meiju retained China’s shot put gold with a mark of 18.62 meters as South Korea’s Lee Myung-son took silver (18.50) and Thailand’s Juthaporn Krasaeyan won the bronze (17.53).
The men’s decathlon also got under way yesterday with Kazakhstan’s Dmitriy Karpov leading after five events.
Sri Lanka’s golden girl Susanthika Jayasinghe, the Olympic 200m bronze medalist, began her quest for double gold in the sprints by coasting to victory in her 200 meters heat after her gold in the 100 on Tuesday.
In the men’s 200 meters heats Japan’s Shingo Suetsugu, heir apparent to Koji Ito who won gold in Bangkok, coasted to victory in his heat in 20.45 seconds. He has reportedly recorded sub-20 second times in training.
The third day of track and field produced seven finals, with China winning three, and the others shared between four Arab nations — Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.
Meanwhile, hosts South Korea beat Taiwan 4-3 to win baseball gold and Kuwait won a first ever athletics title at the Asian Games as a refereeing controversy caused tempers to boil on the badminton court.
The South Korean "Dream Team" were outhit 8-4, but Taiwan made critical errors in the fourth inning, when a wild pitch from Lin Yueh-ping allowed Park Jae-hong to trot home with what turned out to be the winning run at Sajik Baseball Stadium in Busan.
It was a good day for Thailand as they climbed to fifth place in the medals standings on nine golds after winning two more titles in sepak takraw.
Thailand secured their fourth and fifth gold medals out of six in the 1,000-year-old Southeast Asian sport, winning both "regu" finals.
The Thai men beat Myanmar 21-14, 21-17 for the title, while the women defeated China 21-9, 22-20.
Meanwhile, Japan upset South Korea’s traditional dominance in archery as Hiroshi Yamamoto beat team mate Yuji Hamano 113-106 to win gold in the men’s individual final.
South Korea have swept all archery gold medals in the past three Games and took three out of four titles at the Sydney Olympics.
However, the hosts made up for it in sailing as South Korean yachtsmen claimed gold medals in five classes, while the women picked up another gold in the enterprise open class.
Not to be outdone, schoolboy Shibuki Iitsuka won the final two races of the under-15s optimist class to take gold for Japan ahead of runner-up Zhu Ye of China.
North Korea got a rare victory against the South, winning a women’s preliminary football match 2-0 thanks to first-half goals from Jin Pyol Hui and Ri Hyang Ok.
As expected, China took gold in both table tennis singles finals, making up for some poor results in the team and doubles events.
World champion Zhang Yining beat Chinese team mate and reigning Olympic champion Wang Nan by 11-9 in the seventh and deciding game to win a high-quality women’s final.
There was less drama in the men’s final as Olympic champion Wang Liqin thrashed Chuang Chih-yuan in straight sets to take the gold medal.
The result was some consolation for China after they had surrendered their titles in the mixed doubles, women’s doubles and team event in what the state-run Xinhua news agency called "the worst defeat for China in decades."
