Six days into the East Asian Games in Macau, China finally found a real challenger in Japan yesterday.
Japan swept 10 athletics events with China only winning three, and Chinese swimmers responded by sweeping seven out of eight golds and eclipsed two Asian records.
The eag's brightest star Liu Xiang, however, seemed to have taken the sheen away from the athletics meet. Watched by just over 1,000 spectators scattered around the 16,000-seat stadium, yesterday's competition posted a string of lackluster finishes by winners.
The ticketing office at the Macau Stadium still touted Liu yesterday afternoon although the Olympic champion was packing up at his hotel after electrifying the crowd with a 110m hurdles victory on Wednesday.
Six misled students were seen asking for refunds because a ticketing staff had told them their idol would run in the men's 4x100m relay.
"We girls love Liu Xiang  and now I am very disappointed," said Song Shuxiao, a university student, who bought the cheapest ticket for 40 patacas (US$5).
Japan opened with four golds in the men's and women's half marathons, the men's hammer throw and the men's steeplechase in the morning and continued to dominate the men's pole vault, 400m, 1,500m, 4x100m relay and the women's 400m and 4x100m.
Takuro mori won the weirdest pole vault competition in the world after he cleared 5.00 meters with the other two competitors scoring no marks.
Like in the men's hammer throw and 3,000m steeplechase, only three athletes competed in the pole vault, in which Mori was the only one to clear the bar. Mori, whose personal best is 5.30, flew over 5.00 in his fourth attempt and flunked 5.20.
Zhang hongwei of China and Satoru Yasuda of Japan, both having a better record than Mori, scorned the 5.00m mark and faced up to 5.20.
Both failed. No silver or bronze were awarded.
Yasuda's best leap is 5.40 and Zhang last month picked a bronze medal at the National Games after clearing 5.40.
Chinese song Jian won the men's long jump with an unimpressive leap of 7.77 meters, 57 cm outside the games record, while compatriot Li Rongxiang claimed the men's javelin throw in 79.75 meters.
China's xie Sainan took the women's 1,500m in 4:20.54, over 16 seconds slower than the EAG mark.
Two asian records tumbled as China beat Japan seven to one in the swimming pool, in which the latter saved some face thanks to Takeshi Mat-suda, the winner of the men's 800m freestyle in 8:03.19.
Zhou jiawei erased the men's 50m butterfly Asian mark with a golden swim of 23.98 and Xu Yanwei clocked a continental record of 26.63 to win the women's 50m butterfly.
Three eag records were bettered, too: Ouyang Kunpeng timed 1:58.24 for the men's 200m backstroke gold; Zhang Lin won the men's 200m free in 1:48.64; Gao Chang took the women's 50m back in 28.52.
China also won the women's 4x200m (8:10.26) and 200m individual medley (Zhao Jing, 2:16.00).
With the two Asian giants squaring off in athletics and swimming, unmarked South Korea harvested in less-hyped events, sweeping four golds in its national sport of taekwondo, three in bowling, two in shooting and one in weightlifting.
China tops the medal tally with 87, followed by Japan (22), South Korea (20), Macau (9), Chinese Taipei (6), DPRK (4), Hong Kong (1), Mongolia (0) and Guam (0).