SANYA, April 28 (Xinhua) — China swept the gold medals in speed climbing at the 6th Asian Beach Games, with Zhao Yicheng winning the men’s title and its athletes taking all three women’s medals on Tuesday.
Zhao, 16, who set a world record of 4.58 seconds in the preliminaries, claimed gold with times of 4.69, 4.66 and 4.62 seconds across the three rounds.
“I made a lot of preparations for this competition. Tonight I was very focused, and I’m very grateful to the team and my coach,” Zhao said.
In the women’s event, Chinese climbers occupied all four places after the quarterfinals. Zhou Yafei won gold in 6.35 seconds, while Deng Lijuan and Zhang Shaoqin took silver and bronze respectively.
“I’m not particularly satisfied with my performance, but I’m still very happy to have won the gold medal. I also want to congratulate my teammates, and I’m very proud that China swept the top four,” Zhou said. ■
