China's sporting dominance was unchallenged as they swept 19 out of 28 gold medals on the first full day's competition at the 16th Asian Games here on Saturday, but it is still too early to predict whether they can regain their dominance in the pool.
The Chinese swimmers, whose supremacy in Asian swimming was ended by Japan four years ago in Doha, struggled to take an early advantage over the arch rivals in the day's six events.
The much-anticipated fierce race between the two countries ended with the host winning the four women's events and the Japanese better in the two men's. But the clashes were far closer than the golds suggested.
Zhu Qianwei of China, silver medalist at the Beijing Olympics, won the first swimming gold from the women's 200 meters freestyle. Wang Randi won the women's 50 meters breaststroke. The women's 100m butterfly was won by Chinese teenager swimmer Jiao Liuyang.
The women's 4x100 meters medley relay was a thriller, with China touching first, less than half a second adrift of Japan. Hong Kong took bronze.
China's Wu Peng was denied a third consecutive Asian Games gold in the men's 200 meters butterfly, finishing a distant fourth. Japan's Takeshi Matsuda, bronze medal winner at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, took the gold.
Four years ago in Doha, China and Japan closed the swimming competition on 16 gold medals each, with Japan finishing ahead 47-42 ahead in the total medal count.
But out of the pool, China was dominant all across the board.
China defended its honor as Wushu founder as it secured two gold medals on Saturday, in which Yuan Xiaochao clinched the first gold of Asian Games.
The host also showed dominance in their traditional territories of shooting, bagging five out of six gold medals including former Olympic champion Zhu Qinan's double. In the debutant event of dance sports, Chinese left no chance to their opponents, sweeping all the five titles.
Sports dancers Liang Yujie and Shen Hong won the Tango event, which is China's 1000th Asian Games gold medal since the country made an Asian Games debut in 1974.
World champion Wu Jingbiao clinched the first weightlifting gold medal for China by breaking snatch Asian record in the men's 56kg, while compatriot Wang Mingjuan defended her title at ease by winning the women's 48kg.
Newly-crowned world champion China easily took the men's gymnastics team title thanks to some major mistakes by Japan. It was the country's 10th consecutive Asiad team gold.
Kyoichi Watanabe fell off the pommel horse and Ryosuke Baba twice snapped his routine, giving Japan two worst scores of 11.250 and 12.500.
Japan won their first gold medal from the triathlon, with Mariko Adachi leading teammate Akane Tsuchihashi across the finish line. South Korea's Jang Yun-Jung won bronze.
South Korean judokas stormed over their rivals all by ippon to sweep three gold medals while the sport's traditional power Japan managed one gold by decision.
Two of the finals were held between South Korean and Japanese and in both events, the South Koreans proved the winner. Jeong Gyeong Mi beat Akari Ogata to take the women's 78kg event while Hwang Hee Tae defeated Takamasa Anai by ippon to win the men's 100kg class.
South Korean Kim Soo Whan won the men's over-100kg title after beating Abdullo Tangriev of Uzbekistan by ippon. And the other gold was taken by reigning world champion Mika Sugimoto in the women's over-78kg final.
After the first day's competitions, China topped the medal table with 19 golds, seven silvers and two bronzes. Japan is second on 4-10-9 and South Korea was third on 4-3-8.
Hong Kong, China, became the other team to have its name on the gold medal tally besides the giant three countries. Lee Wai Sze clocked 33.945 seconds for a new Asian record to win the women's 500m cycling track time trial.
China topped the medal count at last Asian Games in Doha with 166 gold medals, well clear of second-place South Korea's 58.