September 25: Swimming sensation Qin Haiyang added another title to his name to inflate China's already bulging gold-medal haul at the Asian Games on Monday.
According to AFP, the hosts enjoyed success in rowing, shooting, taekwondo, wushu and mountain biking to top the medals table in Hangzhou with 39 golds towards the end of the second full day of action.
South Korea and Japan are their closest competitors with a distant 10 and five golds respectively.
Chinese swimmers romped to all seven titles on the opening day of swimming on Sunday in an ominous display ahead of next summer's Paris Olympics, but they did not have it all their own way a day later, the French news agency reported.
South Korea's Ji Yu-chan set a new Asian Games record in the men's 50m freestyle of 21.72secs in a shock win ahead of Hong Kong's Ian Ho (21.87) and teenage Chinese star Pan Zhanle (21.92).
According to AFP, Olympic silver medallist Siobhan Haughey clinched Hong Kong's first Asian Games swimming gold ever with an emphatic victory in the 200m freestyle in a sizzling 1min 54.12sec, another Games record.
South Korea took gold ahead of the hosts in the men's 4x200m freestyle relay in another surprise.
The other four races all went the way of China's swimmers, with the hulking 24-year-old Qin adding Games 100m breaststroke gold to his recent world title.
Qin, also the 50m and 200m world champion, romped home in a new Games-record time of 57.76secs, a gaping 1.33sec ahead of teammate Yan Zibei.
World records fell in shooting with India and China both displaying pinpoint precision, added AFP.
The Indian trio of Divyansh Panwar, Rudrankksh Patil and Aishwary Tomar blew away the field with a new world best to win the men's 10m air rifle team event.
It was India's first gold of these Games and they doubled it in the afternoon when they defeated Sri Lanka in the women's cricket final by 19 runs on their Games cricket debut.
"It's a gold medal for the whole of India," said batter Richa Ghosh.
AFP reported that North Korea, competing in their first major international sporting event since the pandemic, added silvers in men's team shooting and women's judo to their lone bronze.
