There was drama of another kind when China's athletic coach Ma Junren stunned sports administrators by revealing that 11 of his champion athletes -- more than half of his "Ma's Family Army" -- had their appendices removed in the past year.
In the medals table race, China remained far ahead with 106 golds, but Japan opened up a three-gold-medal lead of 41 over their traditional rivals for the No. 2 spot, South Korea.
High winds from a nearby typhoon forced the cancellation of all field events and slashed the track program to three gold medals, one each going to China, Qatar and South Korea.
For once the main excitement was away from the main stadium when the No. 1 seed in the men's tennis semifinals Leander Paes of India was knocked out by unknown South Korean student Yoon Yong-il 6-7, 6-4, 7-5.
The top-seeded woman, Kimiko Date of Japan, had a slightly easier time advancing to the finals of the women's tournament.
Paes, a former Wimbledon and U.S. Open junior champion, had predicted before the Games that he would win golds in the team event as well as in singles and doubles.
But his singles charge ended with a weak forehand into the net, giving a just reward to the tenacious South Korean.
Yoon, 21, had broken Paes at 5-5 in the third set and then fought off two break points in the next game to win the match.
Date, ranked 10th in the world, sandwiched two great sets around a bad one in beating third-seed Yayuk Basuki of Indonesia 6-0, 5-7, 6-0.
Date plays compatriot Naoko Sawamatsu, a 6-1, 6-3 winner over China's Chen Li, in Thursday's final while Yoon meets China's Pan Bing, who beat Indonesia's Benny Wijaya 6-3, 6-3.
India's rival Pakistan also had a day of grief when its champion field hockey team went down to South Korea in the second major upset of the day.
South Korea scored four penalties to Pakistan's one after the game had ended 2-2 in regulation time.
South Korean goalie Koo Jin-soo stopped Pakistan's first shot and Mehmood Irfan put Pakistan's third shot over the goal.
South Korea advances to the final to face India, which downed Japan 1-0.
But in the end, the talk of the games was Ma Junren's revelation about appendix operations on his women runners, finally explaining why they have been out of competition for so long.
"We had to stop training last year because we were ... having toxicological problems and that is why we are running slower times," he said.
"Eleven Ma's Family Army members had to have their appendices removed and they needed to recover from their operations," Ma said.
Ma, famed for feeding potions of turtle's blood and Chinese herbs to his squad, did not elaborate on the causes of poisoning.
Leading sports doctors reacted to the news with amazement.
"It is remarkable because it is a very high frequency for a very small group of athletes in a very limited time span. It sounds astonishing," said Arne Ljungkvist, chairman of the medical commission of the International Amateur Athletics Federation, track and field's ruling body.
Qu Yunxia, one of Ma's women, took gold in the 800 meters in a time of 1:59.85, the first time the event has been run under two minutes at an Asian Games.
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