Chinese gymnast Yang Wei became the most titled athlete in the 15th Asian Games after taking his fourth gold medal from the parallel bars on Wednesday, when China won 17 more gold medals to make it 76 in total.

Yang, triple-winner at last October's world championships in Aarhus, Denmark, shared the parallel bars title with South Korean Kim Dae Eun on 16.300 points, adding to his three gold medals won in the team, all-around and rings events.

The 26-year-old, who made his Asian Games debut in the 1998 Bangkok Games, thus tied Chinese legend Li Ning's eight golds as the most prolific male gymnast in the Asiad history.

Cheng Fei, also a triple gold medal winner at the Aarhus Worlds, claimed her third Doha gold winning the floor event with ease, following top honors in the team and vault competitions.

China's gymnastics glory continued, winning three golds and three silvers from the day's five apparatus finals. Veteran Zhang Nan continued her dominance on the beam to grab the balance-oriented title.

Zhang's gold was China's ninth gymnastics title in Doha and the 100th her team has won since making their Asian Games debut in 1974.

North Korea captured a gymnastics gold through Ri Se Gwang, who proved best in the men's vault. Japanese Hisashi Mizutori went away with the men's horizontal title.

The swimming pool witnessed another victory for Chinese triple gold medalist. Xu Yanwei who won the women's 100m freestyle to add her third gold to the 50m free and the 4x100m freestyle relay.

Arch-rivals China and Japan squared off once more, seizing three out of the six swimming gold medals on offer.

Chen Zuo powered to defend the men's 100m free in an Asian record time, returning to winning ways after settling for two silver medals in the 4x100m and 4x200m free relays where Japan claimed golds in both events.

In women's 200m breaststroke, former world record holder Qi Hui stormed to finish in 2:23.93 as the Athens Olympic Games sixth-place finisher took her second title in her favorite event to add to her 400m individual medley gold.

Japanese Hidemasa Sano overcame compatriot and Asian record holder Ken Takakuwa for the men's 200m individual medley gold and Reiko Nakamura triumphed in the women's 100m backstroke.

In the final event of the day,, Yurie Yano beat China's 400m free champion Yang Jieqiao for the 800m free title.

Weightlifters ended their Asian Games competition on Wednesday, with China winning one of the last three golds through Mu Shuangshuang in the women's over 75kg category. The other two golds went to Iran's Hossein Reza Zadeh and Syria's Ahed Joughili in the men's over 105kg category.

Chinese sharpshooters marched on by grabbing five gold medals in all five events on Wednesday. On the overall gold rankings, China is leading with 24. The shooting competition will conclude on Friday with 10 more gold medals at stake.

China qualified for the knock-out stage after beating Oman 2-1 in a bad-tempered men's soccer match. Oman, who needed to beat China by a big margin, saw their slim hopes fade after having two players sent off. Earlier in the day, Japan was shut out of the quarterfinals after losing 2-1 to North Korea.

China and Japan both made the last eight in the men's basketball event. NBA prospect Yi Jianlian had 28 points and nine rebounds in under 23 minutes to help China overcome Chinese Taipei 101-65. Japan claimed its third win in a row by defeating Uzbekistan 75-56 to share a 3-0 record with China in Group B.

The day saw two big names suffer heartbreaking blows. Thai tennis star Paradorn Srichaphan pulled out of the men's singles event due to a wrist injury and China's table tennis star Wang Nan was upset in her semifinal clash by Tie Yana of Hong Kong.

However, Chinese table tennis coaches found some relief as China struck gold in the women's doubles event. China also secured the men's singles title as Ma Lin and Wang Hao have set up an all-Chinese final.

After the fifth day of competition, a total of 19 countries and regions have won gold medals. China leads the medal table with 76 golds, followed by Japan with 22 and South Korea with 15. Kazakhstan is fourth with 10.
 
(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2006)