Asian athletes make golden haul at Winter Universiade

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-02-25 10:39

HARBIN - The Asian athletes made their best to collect a lion's share of the gold medals on offer at the Harbin Winter Universiade on Tuesday.

Mo Tae Bum (C) of South Korea takes a photo with his compatriot Lee Kang Seok (R) and Polish Konrad Niedzwiedzki during the awarding ceremony for the men's 1000m final of speed skating in the 24th Winter Universiade at Heilongjiang Speed Skating Gym in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Feb. 24, 2009. [Xinhua]

Of the nine titles, Japan had three, China pocketed two and South Korea had one, leaving the other three to both Russia and Sweden.

Japanese Yukari Nakano survived a fall in free skate to capture the women's singles figure skating title, beating compatriot Nana Takeda to second at 152.91.

To the music of Giselle, Nakano, winner of the 2007 Asian Winter Games and fourth at the 2008 World Championships, started with a triple axel, followed by a triple flip and double toeloop, posting an overall total score of 154.63 after the two-leg event.

Kiira Korpi of Finland, who led the short program, scored 148.22 for a bronze when the bronze medalist of the 2007 European Championships messed up her landing after a triple lutz and double toeloop.

Earlier of the day, Hoshi Mizue of Japan won the women's giant slalom in a combined time of 2 minutes 18.20 seconds in Yabuli, another venue of the Universiade, some 200 kms away from Harbin.

Hoshi finished the two runs in 1:09.78 and 1:08.42, awarding Japan its first gold medal from Alpine skiing at the Universiade.

Anne-Sophine Barthet of France was second, beating Polish Katarzyna Karasinska to third.

Also in Yabuli, Japan's Sato Koichiro lifted the nordic combined title by notching a total of 227.7 points out of 10-kilometer cross-country race and K90m ski jumping.

Sato finished the mass start cross-country in a moderate 14th place, but rallied to win the combined through strong jumpings in 91.5 and 99.0 meters.

Teammate Nagai Takehiro was edged to second by 2.8 points and Petr Kutal from the Czech Republic managed a podium place in 223.4 points.

The hosts had their gold medals from the speed skating rink and the freestyle aerials, keeping their lead in the gold tally of the Universiade.

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