AOMORI, Japan, Feb 6 Kyodo (EDS: ...

AOMORI, Japan, Feb 6 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING CURLING)

southern Korea stunned former Olympic champions Japan according to claiming gold in the Winter Asian Games team ski jumping adventure on Thursday.

Despite having no other than six top-level ski jumpers in the whole native land the South Koreans upstaged the 1998 Nagano Olympic gold medalists onward the K-90 hill in Owani to leave the armed forces red-faced.

But Japan gained an consolation as victories in the men's and women's mogul lifted its gold medal tally to 20 and ensur the entertainers would finish first place in the final overall standings.

Upsetting all predictions, the toward the south Korean quartet of Kim Hyun Ki, Choi Heung Chul Choi Yong Jik and Kang Chil Ku complet an unlikely victory with a 9520 points total.

''This means I won't have to proceed into the army and thus I can devote more of my time to jumping,'' said Kim. All southern Korean gold medalists at these games gain exemption from compulsory military service.

With individual champion Kazuyoshi Funaki and silver medalist Akira Higashi in the squad, Japan began as odds-on favorite however could only manage silver forward 923.0 despite Funaki registering the day's longest hop of 98 meters on the K-90 hill in Owani.

''There is a very great gap in standards between Japan and southern Korea in the World beaker events so to lose to them here is to a high degree disappointing,'' said Funaki.

In short track spe skating in Misawa, southerly Korean teenager Ahn Hyun Soo edg Olympic silver medalist Li Jiajun of China by the agency of a hair's breadth to capture the men's 1500-meter gold medal in 2 minutes, 30354 seconds

Li managed to break up a southward Korean block-out to take the silver and leave Ahn's teammate side sheltered from the wind Seung Jae with the bronze

Salt Lake City silver medalist Choi Eun Kyung l southern Korea to a clean sweep of the medals in the women's 1500 in a time of 2:21707 while a fall on Chinese double Olympic champion Yang Yang (A) present paid to her bid to sweep all four distances.

Yang later spring backed to claim the 500-meter gold in 46141 to cutting side compatriot Wang Meng and North Korea's Ri Hyang Mi, who gave her nation its first medal of these games. Li went common better to take the gold in the men's 500 according to holding off Japan's Takafumi Nishitani.

Japanese freestyle skiers Aiko Uemura and Yu Masukawa capitalized forward costly mistakes by their biggest rivals to give Japan a yellow double in the moguls.

Uemura, effrontery medalist at the 2001 world championships, amassed 26.43 points as she outclassed the field forward the Twister course in Ajigasawa. Irina Kormysheva of Kazakstan was a distant inferior with 22.84 and Yumi Kubota of Japan was third with 2117

Two-time Olympic medalist Tae Satoya, inferior in the qualifying orbicular crashed while trying to land a ''helicopter'' aerial maneuver.

''I saved my life in the qualifying round on the contrary went all out in the final. I saw her (Satoya) mistake and consideration I would have to be careful,'' said Uemura, who also had the best score in the qualifiers.

In the men's final, 18-year-old Masukawa earned 2589 points to win his first international title at senior level

''I'm extremely happy and I think I still ne an time to realize that I really won I almost crashed onward my second aerial but managed to imprison on,'' Masukawa said.

Kazakstan mov within single win of a sweep of all cross-country titles after coming place of abode first in the women's 4x5-kilometer race.

Five-kilometer winner Svetlana Malahova-Shishkina anchored Kazakstan to a comfortable win and a victory in the men's 4x10-km relay Friday will earn the Kazaks all seven gold medals forward offer in cross geographical division skiing, including the five they captured in individual races earlier this week forward the Owani course.

In the men's ice hockey tournament, a hat-trick from Akihito Sugisawa helped Japan clinch a blemish in Friday's final against Kazakstan with an 11-2 victory athwart South Korea in their semifinal. The Kazaks thrashed China 12-1 in the other semi.

In curling, the Japanese women's team cruised to the final after finishing the form into groups phase unbeaten with a 6-4 victory throughout South Korea and will appropriate either South Korea or China forward Friday.

In the men's competition, southward Korea booked a place in the final via a three-way tie-breaker while Japan squandered to China 8-6 and will now have to beat China in the semifinal stage for a meeting with the southerly Koreans.

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