Kayakers: Two out of three for China

A strong second half to the race saw Liu Haitao complete a golden double with victory in the men's K1 500m race, pipping fast-starting Sergey Borzov of Uzbekistan to the line at West Bay Lagoon.

Chinese kayaker Liu, who had already won the K1 1000m event, passed the 250m mark in second place, 1.49 seconds behind Borzov. However he paddled his way to victory in 1:48.571 as Borzov began to pay for his fast start.

Borzov hung on for the silver medal to finish 0.856 seconds behind Liu with Asian champion Alexandr Yemelyanov claiming the bronze for Kazakhstan, holding off the challenge from Korean Nam Sung Ho by 0.132 seconds.

Olympic men's C1 500m champion Yang Wenjun had only finished fourth in his heat and semifinal, but the Chinese paddler had clearly been saving his best for the final when it mattered.

Yang was a fast starter from lane one at the second time of asking - the first having seen Lee Seoung Woo given a false start warning - and simply paddled away from the rest of the field to take victory in 1:55.009.

Kazakh paddler Zhomart Satubaldin finished 4.840 seconds behind to take the silver medal with Vadim Menkov claiming the bronze for Uzbekistan to go with the gold he won in the C1 1000m race.

Lee ended up finishing in fourth place, almost one second behind Menkov to end Korea's record of having always finished in the medals in this event at the Games after two silvers and two bronzes.

The third final of the penultimate day of the 15th Asian Games featured another Chinese favourite in an outside lane in women's K1 500m defending champion Zhong Hongyan.

However it was not to be a third successive gold medal for the Asian superpowers as Yulia Borzova of Uzbekistan left her rivals trailing in her wake, coasting out to a 0.250 second lead over Zhong at the 250m mark.

Borzova, who had taken silver behind Zhong in Busan four years ago, powered down the final 250m and was able to drift across the finishing line with her fist raised to salute her victory in 1:58.444.

Zhong won the battle for the silver medal, pipping Natalya Sergeyeva of Kazakhstan by more than a second on a partly cloudy day with a 14km/h north-westerly wind.

This makes the Chinese paddler the first woman to win five Asian Games medals - three gold and two silver. Zhong also won the K2 500m in both 1998 and 2002 and picked up silver in the K4 500m four years ago.

15th Asian Games, Doha 2006