Singapore's Tao Li wins gold as Asiad swimming concludes
Tao Li broke the China-Japan stronghold in the pool on the final day of the 2010 Asian Games swimming competition on Thursday.
The Singaporean topped the women's 50m butterfly to win the city-state's first gold in the Guangzhou meet.
Tao touched the wall in 26.10 seconds, which is also a new Singapore record.
Japan's Yuka Kato finished second in 26.27 while China's Lu Ying, who earlier won the 100m and 200m butterfly events, placed third in 26.29.
"I think I was in good shape today. I passed up on some competitions in order to prepare for this Asian Games. I have satisfied myself and my country, Singapore," said the China-born Li.
Japanese swimmers were also victorious at the Aoti Aquatics Centre.
Junya Koga opened the night with a victory in the men's 50m backstroke. He clocked 25.08 seconds, just short of his season-best mark of 24.86. Another Japanese Ryosuke Irie finished second in 25.16. China's
Cheng Feiyi took bronze in 25.30.
Naoya Tomita won Japan's second gold of the night when he ruled the men's 200m breaststroke. He posted a winning time of 2:10.36 to beat China's Xue Ruipeng and South Korean Choi Kyu-woong, who were both
awarded silvers after submitting identical times of 2:12.25.
In the night's final event, Japan won the men's 4x00m medley relay after China was disqualified. The Chinese quartet of Sun Xiaolei, Wang Shuai, Zhou Jiawei and Li Zhiwu finished first with a time of 3:34.01.
But officials ruled that they made an illegal move in the second change.
The disqualification elevated Japan to first place. Irie, Ryo Tateishi, Takuro Fujii and Rammaru Harada are the members of the Japanese squad. South Korea, represented by Park Seon-kwan, Choi, Jeong Doo-hee
and Park Tae-hwan took silver while Kazakhstan's Stanislav Ossinskiy, Vladislav Polyakov, Fedor Shkilyov and Stanislav Kuzmin claimed bronze.
China closed out the competition with two golds. Sun Yang won the women's 200m individual medley. The 14-year-old clocked 2:09.37. Compatriot Wang Qun settled for the silver with 2:12.02 while South Korean
Choi Hye-ra placed third in 2:12.85.
The host country's other gold was won by Sun Yang in the men's 1,500m. He set a new Asian record of 14:35.43 to foil Park Tae-hwan's bid for a fourth gold medal. The South Korean, who earlier won the 100m,
200m and 400m freestyle events, settled for second place in 15:01.72. Zhang Lin, the previous Asian record holder, finished third in 15:22.03.
China emerged as the overall champions in the swimming competition with 24 golds, 16 silver and 14 bronze medals. Japan placed second with a 9-18-12 haul while South Korea finished third with a 4-3-6 harvest.
Other countries that won medals in the swimming competition were Singapore (1-1-0), Kazakhstan (0-1-1), Hong Kong (0-0-2), India (0-0-1) and Chinese Taipei (0-0-1).
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