Table tennis duo win 17th gold for China
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2004-08-21 19:59

China grabbed its 17th gold medal in the ongoing Olympics held in Athens, Greece after Yang Wei and Zhang Jiewen won the gold of the women's badminton doubles Saturday.

Yang/Zhang beat compatriots Gao Ling and Huang Sui 7-15, 15-4, 15-8.

Table tennis men's doubles gold

Chinese Ma Lin and Chen Qi beat the Chinese Hong Kong duo of Li Ching/Ko Lai Chak 4-2 at the men's doubles final at the Olympic Games in Athens on Saturday.

Chinese Ma Lin(R) and Chen Qi beat Ko Lai Chak(R) and Li Ching of Chinese Hong Kong to take the gold medal of the men's table tennis double final match at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games August 21, 2004. [Xinhua]

This is the 16th gold medal for China and the second in the table tennis events at the Athens Olympics.

The Chinese pair won the final by 11-6, 11-9, 7-11, 11-8, 8-11 and 11-5.

Michael Maze and Finn Tugwell from Denmark won the bronze, the first Olympic table tennis medal for the country, as they beat Russian Dimitrij Mazunov and Alexei Smirnov 4-2 (11-3, 11-8, 12-14,3-11, 11-9, 11-8)

Earlier, China's Zhang Yining, rankedworld No.1 in singles, beat South Korean chopper Kim Kyung Ah 4-1 to advance into the women's singles final.

Zhang won the match 13-11, 11-8, 11-6, 5-11 and 11-8.

With this victory, the 21-year-old Zhang, who was crowned women's doubles champion along with her teammate Wang Nan Friday, was just one step away from grabbing two table tennis golds at one Olympic Games.

"I had made full preparations for today's match. I knew it would be a very tough match and I was ready to play seven games," said Zhang.

In the singles final scheduled for Sunday afternoon Athens time, Zhang will take on DPR Korea's Kim Hyang Mi, who beat Singaporean Li Jiawei Saturday in a breathtaking 4-3 match.

The tenacious Kim, who eliminated China's world singles No.3 Niu Jianfeng 4-0 in singles round 4 and also defeated another Singapore player Zhang Xueling 4-2 in the quarterfinal stage, cameback from an almost impossible situation as she trailed 1-3 in thefirst four games and lost the third 0-11.

The scores for the match were 8-11, 11-6, 0-11,8-11, 11-8, 11-6and 11-9.

The Singaporean had defeated Wang Nan, one of the top favorites for the singles gold, in their quarterfinal encounter, shattering the Chinese veteran's dream of winning two golds again in Athens.

Zhang said that she had never played the DPR Korean before. "But I will prepare carefully and play the match with a normal heart," she said. "I will not feel pressure as long as I don't think too much about the gold thing."