Asian Winter Games: Kazakhstan secure top place in medal table

Hosts Kazakhstan secured top place in the Asian Winter Games medal table after they won five more gold medals on Saturday's penultimate day. With only 11 gold medals still at stake, Kazakhstan top the table with 28 gold medals and 62 overall, while second-placed South Korea have 12 golds and 35 overall. Masako Hozumi of Japan increased her team's gold medal tally with a confident win in the women's 5,000m speed skating.
The 24-year-old finished 6.4 seconds ahead of second-placed Park Doyoung of South Korea. Another Japanese skater, Eriko Ishino, was third. Japan's Kanako Murakami took the honours in the women's figure skating, after a solid free skating performance gave her a final total of 177.04 points, 10 points more than compatriot Haruka Imai.
Kwak Min-Jeong of South Korea finished third. A fine presentation in the free dance saw Chinese ice dance duo Huang Xintong and Zheng Xun take gold after leapfrogging their compatriots Yu Xiaoyang and Wang Chen, who had to content themselves with bronze. Silver medals went to Cathy Reed and Chris Reed of Japan.
In the pairs figure skating, Pang Quing and Tong Jian led home a Chinese one-two ahead of Siu Wenjing and Han Cong. Ri Ji-Hyang and Thae Won-Hyok of North Korea were third, winning the first Games medal for their country. South Korean speed-skater Lee Seung-Hoon set a new Asian record at the men's 10,000m distance, clocking a time of 13min 09.74sec to break his previous best mark, which was set last month in Obhiro, Japan.
Kazakhstan's Dmitriy Babenko and Hiroki Hirako of Japan were second and third respectively. The hosts, meanwhile, started the day with a confident win in the women's 4x6km biathlon relay. Kazakhstan seized the lead right from the start through Marina Lebedeva, who came to the first exchange 24sec ahead of Wang Chuni of China.
China's Tang Jalin started in lively fashion and almost caught the hosts but a disastrous performance at the second shooting station, when she had to run two penalty laps, left her almost two minutes behind Kazakhstan at the second exchange. Kazakhstan's third participant, Inna Mozhevitina, also experienced problems with her second shooting but still left veteran Yelena Khrustaleva with a 49sec lead. A superb contribution from Khrustaleva saw the Kazakhs increase their lead to finish almost four minutes ahead of China's Liu Yuanyuan, with Japan coming third.