Asians open medal account with silver, bronze

Sydney: Asian athletes shot their way into the medal standings on the first full day of competition at the Sydney Olympics, with South Korea taking a shooting silver and China a bronze.

South Korean Kang Cho-Hyun led through much of the women's 10 metre air rifle final after qualifying in first place, but had to settle for silver with a score of 497.5 as Nancy Johnson of the United States finished strongly with 497.7 to win the gold.

It was the first gold medal of the Games.

Gao Jing of China also finished strongly to claim the bronze medal with 497.2.

But elsewhere, Asia's performance was less impressive.

Japan's Kiyomi Niwata was the top Asian finisher in the second gold medal event of the morning, the women's triathlon won by Switzerland's Brigitte McMahon over home favourite Michellie Jones. But Niwata nevertheless wound up 14th.

Japan's Akiko Hirao (Japan) finished 17th, with China's Wang Dan and Shi Meng 32nd and 40th respectively. Japan's Haruna Hosoya failed to finish.

At the Homebush arena swimming pool, South Asian swimmers had a dismal day, even though Singapore's Jui Wei Sng won his heat in the men's 400 metres freestyle in a national best four minutes 01.34 seconds and Thailand's Torwai Sethsothron took his heat in 3:56.68.

Neither however qualified for the evening final since they were well outside the eight fastest times that made it into the medals fight, in which Australian sensation Ian Thorpe is the clear favourite.

Yeo last in heat

Joscelin Yeo, Singapore's top medal hope, finished last in her women's 100 metres butterfly heat in 1:01.28, far off the best 16 times that qualified for the evening semi-finals.

Japan's Yasuko Tajima, the 1998 world championship bronze medallist, was the second fastest qualifier for the final of the women's 400 metres individual medley in 4:40.35.

Compatriot Junko Onishi had a 59.11 to splash into the women's 100 metres butterfly final where Dutchwoman Inge de Bruijn is overwhelmingly favoured. Japan's Kosuke Kitajima got into the men's 100 metres breaststroke semifinals with a 1:01.68.

China's world record holder Chen Yan, 19, failed to qualify for the final of the women's 400 metres individual medley heats. Chen was more than 10 seconds outside the 4:34.79 world record she set in Shanghai in 1997.

The only Chinese world swimming champion to come to Sydney, she has suffered from ill health and poor form recently.

In fencing, China's Zhao Gang launched a strong medal bid, winning his men's individual epee third round match 9-8 over Hungary's Attila Fekete.South Korea's Lee Sang-Ki also won his third round bout but compatriot Lee Sang-Yup was beaten.

South Koreans figured prominently in the qualifying round of the women's individual archery, with Kim Soo-Nyung finishing on top followed by Kim Nam-Soon in third and Yun Mi-Jin in fourth.



(c) Reuters Limited.