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Kazakhstan breaks gold drought at Winter Asiad

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-01-31 16:24

Kazakhstan broke its gold drought at the sixth Asian Winter Games, winning two titles in a row in the cross country competitions here on Wednesday.

Kazakhstan, who placed fourth on the medal table of the 2003 Winter Asiad in Aomori, Japan with seven golds, failed to collect a victory two days into the medal competitions.

Oxana Yatskaya finally broke the jinx for Kazakhstan Wednesday morning as she led a 1-2 finish in the women's 5km classical cross country skiing. She crossed the line with 15 minutes and 57.73 seconds, 1.69 seconds ahead of compatriot Svetlana Malakhova.

"I am honored to win this gold medal," said Yatskaya. "Chinese skiers are very strong in this event, I am very happy that I can beat them for the victory."

"The Chinese have been improving very fast, I think the following events will also be hotly contested," Yatskaya added.

Chinese Wang Chunli, winner of the sprint event on Tuesday, settled for the third place on 16:02.73.

"I am happy for the bronze," said Wang. "I performed to my standard, but the Kazakhstan skiers did better."

"There was some fresh snow on the course, which made it difficult for me. But it's not an excuse because all the skiers faced the same situation," Wang added.

Maxim Odnodvortsev added another gold for Kazakhstan, a traditional cross country powerhouse of Asia, taking the men's 30k freestyle cross country skiing in one hour, 22 minutes and 44 seconds.

Odnodvortsev's teammate Andrey Kondryshev took home the silver with 1:24:05 while the bronze was awarded to Japanese Katsuhito Ebisawa.