Sports / Winter Asiad
Besides Olympic winners, Asiad champions still to find fame
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-02-05 08:48
CHANGCHUN, Northeast China - From the Turin Winter Olympic Games one year
ago, the Asian athletes brought back nine gold medals, seven silvers and
seven bronzes -- out of 84 events.
When the 6th Asian Winter Games is to ring down the curtain here Sunday
evening, the world-level skaters and skiers excelled as expected but many
medalists still have a long way to catch up with the top athletes in the
world.
Short-track speedskating, figure skating and freestyle skiing displayed
some high standard actions among the 47 events of the Asian Winter Games.
Olympic champions from China and South Korea ensured the short-track
speedskating to be the most hotly-contested events as Turin 500m women's
champion Wang Meng of China and South Korea's two Olympic triple winners
Ahn Hyun-Soo and Jin Sun-Yu each had two titles to their names. During
the process, Ahn suffered from a bad cold, which could hardly reduce his
stardom in China.
Figure skating also caught much attention as former pairs world champions
and Olympic bronze medalists Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo of China gave the
sport a huge lift in Changchun.
The ladies event would have posed as one of the best competitions if
South Korea's World Cup Finals titlist Kim Yu-Na and World Cup winner Mao
Asada from Japan, both at 16, were not missing from the field.
Freestyle skiing saw Olympic champion Han Xiaopeng of China taking the
men's aerial and Turin silver medalist Li Nina excelling in the women's
competition.
For events like speedskating, ice hockey, curling, biathlon, Alpine
skiing, cross-country skiing, the winners at the Winter Asiad are lesser
known to the world.
Lee Kang-Seok of South Korea was the sole Asian male speedskater with a
medal, a bronze, in the Olympics before he won the same event of 500m
here.
Chinese Wang Beixing eased to the 500m and 1,000m victories in Changchun
but the results of the 21-year-old could only rank seventh and 29th
respectively in the Turin Olympics.
Asian men's curling failed to make it to last year's Olympics and Asian
Winter Games runners-up Japan ended up seventh in the women's action in
Turin.
South Korea, Asian Winter Games champions in both events, neither showed
up in the World Championships, nor the Olympics.
The highest-ranked ice hockey team in the Games is the Chinese women's
team, seventh in the world, and Kazakhstan, placed ninth, won the women's
title here at the Winter Asiad.
For the men's tournament, world number 21 Japan triumphed in Changchun as
Japan, China and Kazakhstan were the only teams in the world Group B.
The Chinese hailed at Liu Xianying, the only triple champion here but she
only stood in 7th in the 12.5km biathlon mass start competition in Turin
and the winning time in the men's 20km individual biathlon could only
give Alexandr Chervyakov of Kazakhstan a 81st finish in Turin.
Maxim Odnodvortsev, 26, grabbed two crowns in the men's cross-country
skiing. His best result, however, was a 9th finish in the men's 30km
pursuit from four events he competed in Turin. The top eight in the 30km
pursuit in Turin were all from Europe.
The 27-year-old Japanese Ikuta Yasuhiro also had two golds in the men's
Alpine skiing but the Asian Winter Games best finished outside of top 30
in the Olympics in the slalom.
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