HANGZHOU, China (AP) – The small island nation of Bahrain won its 10th gold medal Thursday at the Asian Games with Younis Chebichy Paul Chumba winning the women’s marathon.
Chumba was just a few seconds ahead of silver medalist Zhang Deshun at the 35th kilometer mark, but he overcame it and crossed the finish line with a winning time of 2 hours, 26 minutes and 14 seconds, 1 minute and 41 seconds behind him. .
Kazakhstan’s Sardana Trofimova took third place and won the bronze medal.
Chumba, 30, who started competing for Bahrain in 2014, said training in her native Kenya, which has a strong long-distance running tradition, helped her win gold in Hangzhou.
“It’s very competitive in Kenya,” she said after winning. “People start at a young age. They have to walk long distances to go to school.”
Bahrain, a wealthy archipelago nation in the Persian Gulf, is Asia’s third smallest country after the Maldives and Singapore, but was in the top 10 for gold medals on the 12th day of the 15-day Asian Games.
“We have a lot of talent,” Chumba said of the Bahrain squad. “My country should make me happy.”
The Asian Games will attract 12,500 participants from 45 countries and regions, surpassing the 10,500 from the approximately 200 delegates expected at next year’s Paris Olympics.
Host country China won more than 320 medals overall, with more than half winning gold, followed by South Korea and Japan.
In the men’s marathon on Thursday, China’s He Jie won the gold medal in 2:13:02, beating North Korea’s Han Il-ryong by 25 seconds. China’s Yang Shaohui won the bronze medal.
He said he was aware that the Asian Games “will be held in China and will be watched by 1.4 billion Chinese people,” and that this year’s training was centered around the Asian Games.
dragon boat
China won gold medals in the men’s and women’s 500m dragon boat races.
A popular sport in the region, teams of 12 rowers in long, slender boats decorated with Chinese dragon heads row to the beat of a drummer in the bow, while a helmsman in the stern guides the boat. Masu.
The Chinese men’s team defeated Indonesia by less than 0 seconds to win the gold medal, while Thailand was right behind them in third place and won the bronze medal.
The Chinese women’s team won the gold medal, beating the silver medalist Indonesia by nearly two seconds, while Myanmar won the bronze medal with a difference of more than four seconds over the leaders.
regional conflicts
North Korea faced South Korea in the women’s volleyball preliminary round, which had the atmosphere of a final match. In the end, South Korea won.
North Korea took the lead from the start, winning the first of four sets 25-19. South Korea then fought back and won the second set 25-21.
However, North Korea struggled in the third set and lost the game 25-9. The fourth and final set was a close match, but South Korea took the lead in the final minutes and won 25-20.
The two countries weren’t evenly matched in the women’s basketball bronze medal race.
Although North Korea got off to a strong start in the first quarter, they fell behind and were unable to recover, resulting in South Korea winning 93-63.
In baseball, regional rivals Japan and South Korea were scoreless until the fifth inning. In the bottom of the 6th inning, Kim Hye-sung took the lead in the first inning with a double to center field, and Choi Ji-hoon advanced to third base with a sacrifice bunt, finally scoring a run. Kim scored on Noh Si-hwan’s sacrifice fly to the left wing.
Korea added one run in the 8th inning and won 2-0.
The baseball medal games will be held on Saturday, but the final pairings have not yet been determined.
crush
India defeated Malaysia in two matches to win the gold medal in mixed doubles squash.
Immediately after her victory, Indian athlete Dipika Parrikar Karthik said that the realization that she and her partner Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu had won had not yet fully sunk in.
“I’m very, very happy to be on the winning side with Hari. I can’t imagine it being anyone else,” she said.
In the women’s squash singles, Malaysia’s Sivasangari Subramaniam defeated Hong Kong’s Chan Shin-yuk to win the gold medal.
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