China remain top, hosts Indonesia grab 10 golds in one day

JAKARTA - China remained the runaway leaders at the 18th Asian Games after pocketing eight golds while hosts Indonesia were the biggest winner of the day as they claimed 10 golds to rise to the fourth on the medal table on Monday.

China's golds include the women's doubles and mixed doubles titles from badminton, which came just one day after the Chinese shuttlers suffered shock setback in the men's and women's singles, failing to make last four in each of the singles events.

Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan triumphed over Misaki Matsutomo/Ayaka Takahashi of Japan in straight sets in the women's doubles final, while top-seeded Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong had a much easier time before securing the mixed doubles gold.

Chen/Jia deserved the glory well, as they had eliminated world No. 1 pair Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota in the previous day, before overcoming Olympic gold medalists Matsutomo/Takahashi 22-20, 22-20 in an hour.

In the mixed doubles final against Tang Chun Man/Tse Ying Suet of Hong Kong, China, Zheng/Huang were never really tested before the 21-8, 21-15 victory in half an hour.

In athletics, China's Wang Yu clinched men's high jump title as the only one who cleared 2.30 meters in his first attempt. He then tried to renew his personal best of 2.33 meters by challenging 2.34 meters, but failed twice.

"I'm not at my prime time. My performance tonight can only be called so-so because other athletes gave me a lot of pressure. But I'm still very happy to win the gold medal," said the 27-year-old Wang, who finished the fourth in Incheon Games, his Asiad debut, four years ago.

"I can see my improvement this time and it gives me a lot of confidence to fight for the Tokyo Olympic Games," he said.

Elsewhere, Winfred Yavi won Bahrain a gold from the women's 3,000m steeplechase final with a time of 9 minutes 36.52 seconds while Qatari Abderrahman Samba raised the Games' record to 47.66 seconds to win the the men's 400m hurdles.

Hossein Keyhani from Iran won the country's first athletic gold in the men's 3,000m steeplechase, and the women's long jump gold went to Bui Thi Thu Thao from Vietnam, who had her season best of 6.55 meters for the title.

In the women's beach volleyball, China's Wang Fan/Xia Xinyi claimed the gold after beating a Japanese pair. China also won two golds from bridge events and two more from cycling.

In the men's basketball, China eased past Indonesia 98-63 to reach the semifinals while the Chinese women's and men's table tennis teams were also on-fire, both securing their berths in the semifinals of the team events.

Now China lead the medal table on 86 gold, 62 silver and 43 bronze medals, followed by Japan and South Korea on 43 and 28 golds each. Indonesia won 10 golds including eight from pencak silat, a local martial art, to storm to the fourth place with 22 golds in total.