TAEGU, South Korea, 30 August 2003 — Dual Commonwealth gold medalist Rebecca Cooke of Britain set a World Student Games record in the women’s 1,500m swimming yesterday to bring up her third title of the tournament.
The congenitally deaf Scot, who had already won the 200m and 800m and took bronze in the 400m individual medley, punched the air in joy after finishing in 16 min 14.70 sec, smashing the previous mark set by Sachiko Yamada of Japan by 4.74 sec.
Cooke, who led from the outset, touched home a good five meters ahead of Americans Adrienne Binder and Lauren Costella.
Takahiro Mori of Japan set his second record of the tournament in the men’s 400m individual medley. Mori, who already set a games record in the final of the 200m individual medley, swam 4:17.23 to better American Kevin Clement’s mark by 0.59 sec.
Other records tumbled in the men’s 50m butterfly, with Audriy Serdinov swimming 23.93 sec to improve his own games mark by 0.05 sec, and the women’s 4x100m medley, which China won in 4:06.22.
In yesterday’s other swimming results, Yoshihiro Okumura of Japan won the men’s 200m freestyle in 1:49.82 and Shannan Catalano of the United States took the women’s 50m butterfly.
China’s incredible diving performance continued as Tian Liang won the men’s platform, besting compatriot Hu Jia. China, which leads the medals table with 28, has won all eight diving golds contested so far with four more to be decided today.
In yesterday’s athletics events, Ronain Barras of France held on to his overnight lead to win the decathlon with 8,196 points, 74 ahead of Estonian Indrek Turi on 8,122.
Russia’s Oxana Rogova took the women’s triple jump with a leap of 14.16m, 1.34m off the world record, while Sergiv Lebid of Ukraine and Australian Eloise Poppett won the men’s and women’s 5,000m respectively. Neither runner troubled the record books.
Meanwhile, the team sports competitions were nearing the sharp end yesterday. South Korea blanked the United States 3-0 to set up a men’s volleyball final with Japan, who overcame France 3-1.
“We didn’t have much gas today, did we?” commented American coach Arni Ball, explaining that his team had come through a grueling five-set quarterfinal with Russia the previous evening.
“Almost to a man we didn’t have much gas. But Korea played very well — they were good today and we couldn’t put any pressure on them.”
Canada’s vaunted men’s basketball team fell to Serbia and Montenegro but said they were ready to take on China, including giant 212-centimeter (seven-foot) center Xue Yuyang, for the bronze medal tomorrow.
“They’ve got a couple of big guys, even though there’s no Yao Ming now,” said Canadian shooting guard Kyle Russell, referring to the Houston Rockets’ Chinese star.
“We were pretty down after the game because we thought we had a chance to win and go and play for the gold but we’ve got our head straight and we’re really focused on winning the bronze now.”
Serbia and Montenegro also booked their place in the waterpolo final with a 9-7 win over Italy. In today’s final the Serbs will face Hungary, who beat Australia 8-4.
Meanwhile, Igor Zelenay of Slovakia beat Taiwan’s Lu Yen-Hsun 2-6, 6-4, 8-6 to win the men’s singles tennis.
Russia’s Gul Nara Fattakhetdinova beat China’s Xie Yanze 6-3, 6-4 in the women’s final while Iain Bates and Jim May of Britain won the men’s doubles 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, besting Rodrigo Echagaray Rodriguez and Carlos Alberto Lozano Aguilar of Mexico.
Chan Chin-Wei and Chuang Chia-Jung later won the women’s doubles for Taiwan while Russia’s Artem Derepasko and Maria Goloviznina won the mixed doubles.
South Korea picked up another two archery golds, taking their haul in the competition to five. The hosts have stacked the odds in their favor at this tournament by including archery and home-grown martial art taekwondo as two of the three optional events.
Yang Tae-young also came up trumps for South Korea by winning the men’s all-round artistic gymnastics. Iryna Yarotska of Ukraine won the women’s event.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen athletes were yesterday injured when the bus in which they were traveling crashed into another bus.
Police said there were 46 athletes and officials from many different countries in the bus when the accident happened near the stadium where the Universiade is taking place.
Most of those in the bus and the injured were reportedly from Thailand.
