China dominate men's, women's 20km race walk at Hangzhou Asiad

HANGZHOU, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- China swept both gold and silver medals in the 20km race walk at the Asian Games here on Friday, with Zhang Jun and Wang Zhaozhao finishing first and second respectively in the men's event, and Yang Jiayu defending her title in the women's race followed by Ma Zhenxia.

The victories from Zhang and Yang mark China's fifth consecutive win in the men's event and the sixth gold in a row in the women's race at the Asian Games.

Zhang, the second fastest men's 20km race walker this season, broke away from Wang with 4km left to win his first-ever major title in 1:23:00.

Wang finished second in 1:24:08, followed by newly-crowned Asian champion Yutaro Murayama of Japan in 1:24:41.

Zhang's finishing time was 13 seconds faster than his result at last month's World Championships in Budapest, where Chinese race walkers failed to secure any medals.

"I've learned a lot from Budapest and have trained hard in the past month," said Zhang. "Today I just stuck to my plan, saving my energy in the first 15km and accelerating in the final 5km," he added.

The women's event saw a showdown between world record holder Yang and Youth Olympic champion Ma.

The duo led the whole race and pushed themselves forward with 5km to go. At the last refreshment station, one of Yang's shoes became loose, forcing her to an unexpected halt.

"For a moment I was thinking about just walking on like that, but then I realized I couldn't speed up in the final phase with my shoe problem, so I stopped to fix it and then caught up with Ma," Yang recalled after the race.

The pair were neck and neck until the final meters of the race. Ma overtook Yang with 10m to go, but the defending champion made a miraculous comeback just before the line, clocking 1:30:03 to seize the gold.

"To be honest I haven't been in good form since Budapest. I was even unable to complete the training plan a week before the Asiad. Today's weather is hot and humid, which also created more difficulties," said Yang, attributing her victory to her mental strength and her execution of the race.

Ma settled for silver, just one second behind Yang. The 25-year-old was the highest-ranked Chinese race walker at the World Championships in Budapest, finishing seventh in the women's 20km event.

The bronze medal went to Japan's Nanako Fujii, who finished in 1:33:49.