Artistic swimmers gift China 100th gold at Asiad

Swimmers of China compete during the Artistic Swimming Women's Teams contest at the 18th Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, Aug. 29, 2018. [Photo: Xinhua]

With the traditional Peking Opera music elements, defending champions China on Wednesday retained the title of the team artistic swimming for the fourth time and it was the 100th gold medal for China at the ongoing Asian Games.

Besides the artistic swimming team gold, China grabbed four golds to top the table with 102 gold, 67 silver and 50 bronze medals.

The Chinese artistic swimming team first finished on top with the Beautiful Baikal in the technical routine with 92.5062 points, and then continued their lead in the free routine in 94.4333 points for a winning total of 186.9395 points.

"We are honored to win the 100th gold medal for Team China! It was a long and busy day. It is the first time we competed both technical and free routines within one day. We got up at 4am and did make-up, warm-up and competition," said Guo Li, a member of China's winning team.

"It is no problem at all to our physical strength since we trained much harder than this. We want to show the mixture of Chinese traditional style and physical power and speed to the audience," Guo added.

Also from the pool, Chinese divers showed a class of their own as world champions Shi Tingmao/Chang Yani and Chen Aisen/Yang Hao sealed victories in the women's 3m synchro springboard and men's 10m synchro platform.

China have swept all four synchro events on offer at these Asian Games.

Shi/Chang, winners of the 2017 FINA World Championships and 2018 World Cup, led the field and collected a total of 335.70 points for the gold.

"We did not look at the scores but concentrated on our dives. Chang is 10 years younger than me but she is smart and knows how to dive with me," said Shi who will be 27 years old in two days on Aug 31.

Chen/Yang also met no challenge before winning the men's 10m synchro platform with 466.47.

In athletics, Chinese athletes Wang Kaihua and Yang Jiayu won men's and women's 20km race walking golds.

On the medal table, leaders China are followed by Japan and South Korea on 52 and 37 golds respectively. Hosts Indonesia reeled off six out of eight golds in pencak silat, a local martial art, to place fourth on 30 golds.