Curtains drawn on Asian Games

China finishes with a whopping 416 medals, Pakistan end 20th.

GUANGZHOU: An ‘extraordinary’ Asian Games closed after 15 days of thrills and spills that saw hosts China reinforce its sporting credentials and Japan slip further behind.

On the last day of action at an Asiad unprecedented in size and scale, China fittingly won the last gold at stake when their women’s volleyball team toppled South Korea 3-2.

Zhou Chunxiu added yet more gold to their glittering haul by defending her women’s marathon title with teammate Zhu Xiaolin taking silver and North Korea’s Kim Kum-Ok the bronze. South Korea’s Ji Youngjun won the men’s race.

The volleyball success pushed the host nation’s final gold tally to 199 and its total medals to a whopping 416 — both Asian Games records.

While China basked in its most successful Asiad ever, its arch-rival Japan performed worse then expected, winning just 48 titles for an overall 216 total medals. It left them well behind South Korea, who claimed 232 medals altogether.

“The reason why we have been successful is related to the rise of our nation, along with the constant rise of China’s economy and our national strength,” said China’s Vice-Minister of sports Duan Shijie. “This medal haul again can represent a major achievement in our preparations for the London Olympics.”

While the traditional big three dominated, 36 of the 45 countries and territories taking part managed to climb the podium, with some notable successes.

Macau won its first gold medal ever through Jia Rui in the men’s wushu while Bangladesh claimed the men’s cricket title  beating Afghanistan. Oman and Nepal propped up the table with a single bronze each.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 28^th, 2010.