Asian Games | Sun up early for China with first gold medal

Sun Peiyuan performs

Sun Peiyuan won the first gold medal awarded at the 18th Asian Games with an acrobatic victory in wushu’s changquan discipline ahead of local hope Edgar Marvelo.

The changquan competition started at 9 a.m. local time yesterday and was over within an hour, with Sun scoring 9.75 to claim a gold medal in the same city where he won the world title in 2015.

Marvelo, who was inspired to take up wushu after watching movies starring Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee, gave host country Indonesia a silver at 9.72 and Tsai Tse-min of Taiwan picked up bronze.

Wushu, a Chinese martial art that was introduced to the Asian Games in 1990 and translates to “long fist,” has been something of a gold mine for China at the regional games.

“I knew if I perform well I can win the gold. So the pressure from the Indonesian athlete was mainly due to him competing in his home ground,” Sun said. “I wanted to thank everybody for the support. I am glad that I didn’t let you down.”

Lee Ha-sung, who won the event in 2014 to give South Korea the first gold medal at Incheon, finished a distant 12th.

Three-time Olympic gold medalist Sun Yang began his quest for five swimming titles in Jakarta by posting the fastest time in the heats of 200-meter freestyle in 1 minute, 47.58 seconds. Khader Baqlah of Jordan was 0.02 seconds behind.

Sun, the Olympic champion, is aiming to upgrade the two silvers he has taken in the 200 in the previous two editions of the Asian Games.

Japan star Ryosuke Irie is aiming for a third straight Asian Games gold in the 100-meter backstroke, and began by posting the second-fastest time in the morning heats in 53.85 seconds, 0.25 behind China’s Xu Jiayu.

There are seven finals on the opening night of the swimming program on Sunday, when 21 gold medals are on offer. Other finals will be held in fencing, shooting, taekwondo and wrestling.

Taiwan won the first of the gold medals in the co-host city of Palembang — on the island of Sumatra and more than 400 kilometers northwest of Jakarta — with Lin Ying-shin and Lu Shao-chuan combining for a games record 494.1 points in the 10-meter air rifle mixed team final. China collected silver and India’s Apurvi Chandela and Ravi Kumar took bronze.

Also in Palembang, a joint Koreas rowing team finished last in the first heat of the lightweight men’s four competition behind Indonesia, Uzbekistan and Hong Kong.

South Koreans Kim Su-min and Park Tae-hyun and North Koreans Yun Chol Jin and Kim Chol Jin only started training together last month after their countries agreed to enter joint teams for three rowing evens, a dragon boat crew and women’s basketball. AP