Swimming for glory: China vs Japan at Asian Games

On the third day, Liu Xiang created a good start of China winning women's 50m backstroke as well as breaking the world record. However, Japan's golden girl Rikako Ikee again became the champion of women's 100m butterfly. With the joint effort of Yu Hexin winning in men's 50m free and Sun Yang's 400m free, and women's 4x200m free, China won by a narrow margin with one gold medal ahead of Japanese team.

In the following two days, Singapore's Olympic swim champion Joseph Schooling edged a nail-biter in the 50m butterfly and 100m butterfly at the Asian Games breaking the monopoly of China and Japan. Meanwhile, China and Japan did not stop their friendly competition.

Chinese women's team got the champion of 200m free and butterfly in succession, then Japan won men's 100 breaststroke and 400m medley, women's 100m backstroke and 50m breaststroke; After Japan obtaining men's 4x100m free and women's 4x100m medley, China attained 4x100m medley, women's 800m free and men's 200m backstroke.