China, U.S. win 1st athletics gold at Universiade
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Xinhua, August 20, 2011
Hosts China and traditional powerhouse the United States both earned their first athletics gold at the Shenzhen Universiade on Friday.
China's gold medal came from the women's team 20km walk, while the U.S. pocketed two golds in the men's 400m hurdles and the women's 100m hurdles.
Though Chinese athletes Shi Yang, Wang Shanshan and Yang Yawei did not reach the top three, their overall scores were the best among all the teams, which brought China the first athletic gold.
The day also saw a bronze medal for China in the women's 3,000m steeplechase. Jin Yuan, the bronze medalist at Guangzhou Asiad, finished third in 9:45.21. Binnaz Uslu of Turkey claimed the gold in 9:33.50 and the silver went to Ludmina Kuzmina of Russia.
In the preliminaries of the men's 110m hurdles, defending champion Yin Jing of China quit due to injury and his compatriot Jiang Fan qualified the semifinal.
Athletic powerhouse United States finally got a place in the gold medal tally in athletics till the fourth day.
Ranked second in the world at 47.93 seconds, top favorite Jeshua Anderson of USA won the men's 400 hurdles final without any suspense. However, he did not transcend himself, by winning the gold in 49.03 seconds.
Jeshua said he had arrived at Shenzhen several days before the Universiade in order to adapt to the hot weather.
"I am glad that I could get the gold medal here," he said, adding that it was a good warmup for the Daegu Track and Field World Championships.
Jamaica pocketed two gold medals in the men's and women's 200m, after grabbing the men's and women's 100m two days ago.
Turkey also earned two golds in the women's 3000m steeplechase and the men's Javelin.
Russia got the gold medal of women's pole vault, while Moldova finished the first place in the women's hammer.
Seven athletic gold medals are up for grab on Saturday.
