Asian Games: China Sweeps Shot Put Gold as Records Tumble in Nagoya

China’s Song Jiayuan delivered the throw of her season on Friday, heaving the shot put 19.40 metres to claim gold at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan. Her teammate Zhang Linru took silver with 18.14 metres, completing a Chinese sweep of the top two spots in the women’s event.

The result adds another gold to China’s rapidly growing medal haul at these Games. Earlier in the day, gymnast Tian Hao secured China’s 95th gold of the competition, winning the men’s horizontal bar with a score of 14.700. Japan’s Shinnosuke Oka took silver, while Filipino star Carlos Yulo claimed bronze — a podium that underlined both China’s dominance and the rising depth of gymnastics across Asia.

But the most electric moment of the athletics programme came on the track. In the men’s 100m semi-finals, Thailand’s Puripol Boonson blazed to 9.91 seconds, breaking the Asian Games record of 9.92 set by China’s Su Bingtian in 2018. The 20-year-old Thai sprinter has been billed as the future of Asian sprinting, and his run signals that the continent’s fastest man may no longer come from China.

China’s Xie Zhenye advanced comfortably, clocking 10.18 to finish second in his heat, while compatriot Zeng Keli also moved through with 10.24. On the women’s side, Chen Yujie ran 11.41 to reach the final as the fourth-fastest qualifier, with a Singaporean sprinter topping the semi-final times.

In the pool, Zhang Zhanshuo closed out a remarkable Games by winning the men’s 400m freestyle in 3:41.28, lowering the Games record. It was his seventh gold of the meet — a haul that cements the young swimmer as one of the breakout stars of Nagoya. “I feel I still have more in me,” he said afterward, hinting that faster times lie ahead.

Not every Chinese campaign went to script. The women’s basketball team fell 80-85 to South Korea in the semi-finals, missing out on a shot at gold. China shot a dismal 0-for-13 from three-point range, and despite 22 points and seven rebounds from teenage centre Zhang Ziyu, they could not hold a four-point lead going into the final quarter. “Tomorrow is a new day,” said forward Luo Xinyu, who scored 17. “We will fight for the best possible placing.” Head coach Gong Luming defended his squad, saying a single game does not define the team.

There was also a high-profile withdrawal off the court. Jannik Sinner, the world’s top-ranked men’s tennis player, announced he will miss the China Open in Beijing as he continues to recover from a knee injury. “I’m not ready to compete,” the Italian wrote in a message to Chinese fans, promising to return next year.

With several days of competition still to come, China remains firmly atop the medal table. Yet the day’s storylines — a teenage Thai sprinter rewriting the record books, a seven-gold swimmer hungry for more, and a basketball team forced to regroup — showed that even in a dominant campaign, the drama rarely stops.