Despite the inroads of central Asian stars, China widened its galloping lead in track and field competition with seven gold medals and six record-breaking performances. Only Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan could break the Chinese gold monopoly with victories in three field events.
And Uzbekistan's Ramil Ganiev was ahead in the battle for honors as Asia's best male athlete, taking a comfortable lead in the two-day decathlon.
With first place out of sight, South Korea passed archrival Japan and surged into second place in the gold column, largely thanks to victory in three head-on clashes between the two nations in Japan's native sport of judo.
The Koreans, following their 10-gold haul of Thursday, also won Friday in two rifle competitions, cycling, women's field hockey, men's handball and softball tennis.
Their nine for the day gave them a total of 57 to Japan's 52. The Japanese could have kept up by sweeping the day's four judo events, but won just one. They also had golds in cycling, softball tennis and baseball.
The Chinese, held to just six golds Thursday, beat that in track and field alone Friday, winning seven of the day's 10 events. They added two golds each in table tennis and shooting, one in cycling and three in the fighting art of wushu.
In total medals, China had 260, Japan 189 and South Korea 164. Kazakhstan had 72, including 22 gold.
The one break in the Chinese women's track and field domination Friday came when Asia's top high jumper, Svetlana Mounkova of Uzbekistan, won her event with a leap of 1.92 meters.
Kazakhstan had two winners in men's field events -- Igor Potapovich in the pole vault, with a games record 5.65 meters, and Oleg Sakirkin in the triple jump, with a leap of 17.21 meters. Kazakhstan's Grigory Egorov, the Olympic silver medalist in the pole vault, had to settle for second here too with 5.50.
In the competition for leading all-around athlete, Uzbekistan's Ganiev led China's Cai Min 4,242 points to 4,051 after five of the decathlon's 10 events.
Also Friday, a rift between supercoach Ma Junren and Chinese sports authorities spilled into the open when China's top sports official said Ma should stop "shouting" and overtraining his women runners.
Wei Jizhong, secretary general of the Chinese National Olympic Committee, also said Friday that China's top female discus thrower Qu Qiaping had failed a dope test for anabolic steroids.
(AP, Reuters)
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