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Riders give Qatar first golden moment
Hosts Qatar won their first gold medal of the Asian Games in the equestrian three-day event yesterday, a day after a South Korean rider died during the same competition.
- AP
- Published: 23:35 May 3, 2009
Doha: Hosts Qatar won their first gold medal of the Asian Games in the equestrian three-day event yesterday, a day after a South Korean rider died during the same competition.
Kim Hyung-chil, a 47-year-old member of South Korea's three-day event team and a former Olympian, was crushed by his horse after hitting a jump during the cross-country section. It was the first death of a competitor in the 55-year history of the Asian Games.
While Kim's brother arrived in Qatar yesterday to collect the body, equestrian officials defended their decision to continue running the cross-country stage following the death and in deteriorating weather conditions.
"The horse approached the jump and essentially got too close before taking off, resulting in a somersault-type fall," equestrian technical delegate Andy Griffiths, a former British rider, said yesterday.
"With the full weight of the horse landing on top of the rider on the other side of the fence, the rider was probably dead on impact."
Competition restarted three hours later, following a heavy downpour, and continued into yesterday.
The Qatar team's gold medal was just its 15th ever in the Asian Games, and first in equestrian. Japan took silver and India got the bronze medal after initial third-placed Indonesia was relegated to fourth on a protest.
Oiwa shines
Yoshiaki Oiwa claimed the individual eventing medal for Japan, ahead of Qatar's Abdulla Ali Abdulla Al Ejail and Husref Malek Jeremiah of Malaysia.
The track and field competitions got under way, with China's Zhang Wenxiu taking the women's hammer throw gold medal at Khalifa Stadium in an Asian record distance of 74.15 metres. In the women's field hockey, Japan turned the formbook upside down with a resounding 3-0 victory over defending champion China to top the round-robin league standings.
There was another lopsided result in the women's field hockey when Surinder Kaur scored a hat trick to lead India to a 7-0 thrashing of Hong Kong.
Rain hampered competition for the second straight day in this desert city, causing play in the men's team tennis final between Japan and South Korea to be suspended.
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