[Asian Games] Rising athletes to shine

From the Northeast to the Middle East, nearly 10,000 Asian athletes will compete at the Asian Games, which officially opened on Friday.

China is expected to extend its rein while host South Korea and its archrival Japan will compete for second place.

Viewing the continental games as a testing ground ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics, many countries are fielding emerging athletes who could potentially dominate future sports scenes.

The Games will feature many world champions including Korean swimmer Park Tae-hwan, his Chinese rival Sun Yang, Japanese wrestler Saori Yoshida, Indian shooter Abhinav Singh Bindra and Chinese badminton great Lin Dan.

China

China has sent a giant 1,328-member delegation, including 899 athletes, which account for about one-tenth of all contenders, expecting to reap gold medals in swimming, diving, table tennis, shooting, badminton and others.

China has dominated the Asian Games medal standings eight times in a row. It collected a record 416 medals, including 199 golds, at the 2010 Guangzhou Asiad.

Expectations are particularly high for China’s swimmers. The battle between Sun Yang, the reigning Olympic men’s 1,500 freestyle and 800 freestyle world champion, and 2008 Olympic men’s 400 freestyle champion Park Tae-hwan will be a highlight of the Games, with the pair expected to go head-to-head for the 200 and 400 titles.

Ye Shiwen, 18, is also in the spotlight. She set a world record in the women’s 400 individual medley and an Olympic record in the 200 individual medley at London 2012, having already become the youngest swimming world champion since 1978 by winning the 200 individual medley title in 2011.

China is bringing a slew of other London Olympic gold medalists to the games, including 2008 and 2012 badminton men’s singles winner and five-time world champion Lin Dan, an athlete so dominant in his sport he’s won the nickname “Super Dan” among Chinese fans.

Men’s table tennis star Ma Long and gymnast Zou Kai were winners in London in sports traditionally dominated by China, while fencer Lei Sheng and weightlifter Lu Xiaojun brought home golds in events in which Chinese feature less often on the podium.

Women’s 2008 and 2012 taekwondo Olympic champion Wu Jingyu will also compete in Incheon, along with top men’s gymnast Zou Kai and diver Chen Ruolin, the London platform champion who also won the women’s synchronized platform gold in 2008 and 2012.

On the track, Zhang Peiming is seeking to become the first Asian man to break 10 seconds in the 100 meters. Zhang set the national record last year in Moscow, earning the epithet “the flying man of China.”


South Korea

South Korea hopes for a fifth consecutive second-place finish at the Games. The host has assembled its largest-ever Asiad delegation with 1,068 members, including 831 athletes competing in all 36 sporting events.

The country aims to win more than 90 golds. The sporting year has been a difficult one for South Koreans, who saw their national soccer team suffer a first-round exit at the World Cup in Brazil while the medal haul from the Sochi Winter Olympics was below expectations.

It recorded its best gold-medal hauls when hosting the Asiad, winning 93 at the 1986 Seoul Games and 96 at the Busan Games in 2002.

South Korea has gold medal favorites in Park Tae-hwan for swimming, Son Yeon-jae for rhythmic gymnastics and Oh Jin-hyek for recurve archery. It also has high hopes in shooting, fencing, judo and taekwondo, as well as team events such as baseball and men’s and women’s soccer.

Park looks to add to his tally of six Asian Games gold medals. He set the year’s fastest men’s 400 freestyle time in the world at the Pan Pacific Championships in Australia last month.

Rhythmic gymnast Son Yeon-jae will face stiff Chinese competition for gold. She finished fifth in the individual all-around at the world championships last year. She has been expanding her presence on the global stage ever since, winning her first career individual all-around World Cup title in Lisbon, Portugal, in April.

Badminton world No. 1 pair Lee Yong-dae and Yoo Yeon-seong are favorites in the men’s doubles.


Japan

From marathoner Naoko Takahashi to judoka Ryoko Tamura and swimmer Kosuke Kitajima, Japan has seen numerous Olympic gold medalists kick off their careers at the Asian Games.

Japan is hoping many future stars emerge from the Games as it prepares for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

A total of 715 athletes will represent Japan, with swimming and track and field providing the bulk of the delegation.

In the pool, 20-year-old swimmer Kosuke Hagino, who should be hitting his prime when Tokyo hosts the Olympics, will be counted on to help Japan challenge powerhouse China.

Hagino, who beat Michael Phelps in the men’s 200 medley final at the Pan Pacific Championships in Australia last month, is entered in six individual events at Incheon and will be a gold medal contender in most of them.

In athletics, dual 100- and 200-meter national record holder Chisato Fukushima and Berlin World Championships javelin bronze medalist Yukifumi Murakami are among Japan’s top medal contenders.

Japan is also expecting big medal hauls in judo and women’s wrestling.

Others

North Korea is eyeing a top-10 finish in the medal standings. It has fielded 150 athletes in 14 sports including Olympic gold medalists and world champions, including Om Yun-chol and Kim Un-guk, a pair of reigning Olympic champs and world record-holders in men’s weightlifting.

This is the third time that the communist country has participated in an international multisport event hosted by South Korea, after the 2002 Busan Asian Games and the 2003 Daegu Summer Universiade.

The Southeast Asian nations struggle to compete against the Northeast powerhouses. But they pin high hopes on badminton, archery, shooting, weightlifting and sepak takraw ― or kick volleyball ― which is native to the region.

Indonesia, a former badminton powerhouse that has struggled to produce champions in recent years, is sending 18 players, and is hoping for gold in the mixed doubles.

Myanmar is competing in just 10 of the 42 sports, but has high hopes for gold medals in sepak takraw, in which it picked up two golds in 2010, said sports official Kyaw Hsan Oo.

Vietnam, which had been named the host of the 2019 Games but backed out in April citing a lack of funds, said it would be satisfied with two or three gold medals at Incheon.

War-ravaged Afghanistan could write another chapter in its cricketing fairytale by winning its biggest title yet, four years after claiming silver in Guangzhou.

(From news reports)