China aims for more world records
(Agencies)Updated: 2006-12-05 08:24
Doha - China plans more world records at the Asian Games and a resurgence in the pool following an icy blast from the coach after Japanese and South Korean swimmers stole the show.
China begins day three with 29 gold medals in the bag, to Japan's seven and South Korea's four.
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"I want to say it's not very good," he said. "Many problems were exposed."
He said he was pleased with newcomers like Yu Rui and Bai Anqi, but not with veterans Wang Haibo and Zhao Jing.
"I'm not very satisfied with the older swimmers," Zhang said.
They have a chance to redeeem themselves on Monday with seven finals -- the women's 50m backstroke, 400m freestyle, 200m butterfly, and the men's 100m breaststroke, 50m freestyle, 200m backstroke and 4x200m freestyle relay.
Japan's Olympic hero Kosuke Kitajima also has revenge on his mind after falling to Vladislav Polyakov of Kazakhstan in the 50m breaststroke on Sunday.
They face off again over 100m, with China's Wang Haibo, also in the field to make for a keenly-anticipated race.
Kitajima is the defending champion.
Chinese lifters will be in action again following the triple world record breaking heroics of Chen Yanqing in the women's 58kg category on Sunday.
She said it was China's plan to smash world marks, a view backed up by Chinese Olympic Committee official Ma Wenguan.
"We were planning to break the world record and we did it," he said.
"We have to wait and see if more records are broken. But I am hopeful that we will."
China has dominated the weightlifting so far and more of the same is expected Monday when the women's 63kg and 69kg categories and the men's 77kg category are contested.
Other nations will get their chance of glory in other sports.
The men's and women's doubles bowling gets underway with Southeast Asian nations like Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia traditionally the trend setters.
Judo continues with Japan looking to save face after seeing its usual dominant posiiton undermined by South Korea and Mongolia, with some high profile stars from the birthplace of the sport crashing out of contention.
Four gold are at stake Monday.
On the ranges, Kuwait and Kazakhstan will be gunning to keep China at bay again after holding their own on Sunday. Four golds will be decided.
Elsewhere, China's world beating men and women gymnasts begin their individual allround routines.
World champion Yang Wei is the main attraction in the men's competition, but will face stiff competition from Japan's 2006 world championship silver medallist Hiroyuki Tomita.
In the women's final, China's Athens Olympic bronze medallist and reigning Asian Games champion Zhang Nan will be hoping to repeat her success from Busan four years ago.
Tennis action kicks off with the men's and women's team events where India's Sania Mirza and China's Li Na are the drawcards.
Badminton enters the semifinals stage in the team competition as Singapore, Japan, China and Korea battle for a final place on the women??s side, while China, Indonesia, Korea and Malaysia compete in the men's.
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