China's domination of the East Asian Games (EAG) in Macau hit a bump yesterday as its young divers and much-hyped women's basketball team suffered bitter defeats.

Chinese divers lose their poise. -Xinhua

Yuan Peilin, 14, and Jia Tong, 15, appeared as nervous, fidgety figures on the 10-meter platform despite being reigning world champions.
The youngsters made a mess of their next-to-last dive, losing the women's 10m synchronized title to Universiade runners-up Hong In-sun and Choe Kum-hui.
The shock victory brought the Democratic People's Republic of Korea its first EAG gold in 12 years. The country competed in the inaugural games in 1993 but skipped in 1997 and 2001 editions.

The Chinese women cagers lost to Chinese Taipei 79-56.-Sina

Despite being pre-games favorite, the Chinese women cagers, mostly from the national youth team, lost to Chinese Taipei 79-56. The shocking 23-point gap revealed that there was something wrong with the Chinese team after it barely managed to beat Japan 73-72 on Sunday.
Chinese Taipei clinched its second straight win following Sunday's 96-63 demolition of DPRK, which lost its second game, 62-72 to South Korea.
Despite the setbacks, China snatched 10 of the 18 gold medals on offer yesterday, making it 31 in total. Macau remained second with seven golds and South Korea third with three.
Chinese divers' bid for a clean sweep was derailed as Hong and Choe pulled off five consistent dives for a winning total of 330.54 points.
Yuan and Jia amassed 327.60 points for silver, after scoring only 63.36 for their fourth dive - an inward three and half somersault tuck - as opposed to 79.68 for the DPRK pair who executed the same dive. Japan's Mai Nakagawa and Misako Yamashita finished third on 302.40 points.
Some mistakes
Yuan and Jia, who led in the first three rounds, admitted they were nervous and unprepared for their rivals. "We had never competed against the DPR Koreans. We were nervous and made some mistakes we shouldn't have," said Yuan.
China sports chief Liu Peng consoled the teen divers after the final. "You are the future of Chinese diving. Don't lose confidence after one defeat."
The Chinese Olympic president also asked Olympic champion Guo Jingjing to teach her young teammates how to handle pressure.
Luo Yutong grabbed the day's first diving gold, and his second, in the men's 1m springboard with 479.84 points. His teammate Chen Jiaming and Japanese Ken Terauchi picked up the silver and bronze, respectively.
China's Ma Qianli, second to Guo in Sunday's 1m springboard, garnered 338.64 points to win the women's 3m springboard. Guo pulled out of the event, citing team decision.
"It was decided by the team which needed me to concentrate on Tuesday's 3m synchronized springboard," Guo said.
The Chinese basketball men's team took sweet revenge for their women's squad, beating Chinese Taipei 68-65.
China continued to dominate weightlifting, sweeping all three golds yesterday.
Deng Jianying opened the gold count in the women's 53-kilogram category. She heaved 100kg in snatch and 118kg in clean and jerk for a winning total of 218kg.

Olympic champion Chen Yanqing had an easy win in her swansong.-Xinhua

In the women's 58kg class, Olympic champion Chen Yanqing had an easy win in her swansong, lifting 146kg in snatch and 180kg in jerk for 228kg, 9.5kg shy of her Olympic gold-winning lift.
China's third gold, sixth in two days, came from Chen Chufu in the men's 69kg. Chen heaved 146kg in snatch and 180kg in jerk to total 326kg.
China reaped four more wushu golds from the men's taijiquan (Wu Yanan), men's all-round (Zhao Qingjian), women's all-round (Chen Yanping) and women's changquan (Chen Min).
In gymnastics, China clinched the women's team title with 152.584 points.