Japan stopped the gold-medal haul in the relay events of the United States by winning the women's 4x100m medley relay on Monday in the swimming competition of the Bangkok Universiade.
The U.S. team was on the way for the fifth relay gold medal after it wrapped up the victories of the four relay events in the past four days.
Double-champion Aya Terakawa, who won the 50m and 100m backstroke events, conquered again on the first start for Japan, leading by 0.52 seconds ahead of the U.S., on third, in the first 100 meters.
The U.S. never really threatened the leader, even on the butterfly turn when Japanese Yuka Kato, who just came off from the 50m finals about one hour ago, kept the lead for good.
"I'm surprised. I'd not expected to beat the U.S. team, as they also gave out the 100 per cent of them in the final," Japanese head coach Hiroaki Kaneko said.
"We lost to them in Izmir in 2005, but this time we showed our strength to beat the U.S. on relay events," he said.
Japan finished with a time of four minutes and 3.11 seconds, while the U.S. timed 4:03.96. Canada took the bronze by 4:04.52.
The victory put Japan on the second place on the medal table with four golds, eight silvers and one bronze. The U.S. is still leading by 8-7-6.
Patrick Mellors started the day with the victory of 4:12.94 in the men's 400m medley while his American teammate Adam Ritter added the men's 200m freestyle victory to his 100m silver medal by 1:47.42.
Japan's pair, Yuka Kato and Masae Oshimi, timed the identical 26.82 seconds in the women's 50m butterfly for two silver medals, as Austrian Fabienne Nadarajah triumphed with 0.01 seconds advantage.
In the other two events, Switzerland's Flavia Rigamonti pocketed the women's 1,500m freestyle marathon by 16:05.90, while Sergii Breus swam the fastest 23.71 for the trophy in the men's 50m butterfly.
Source: Xinhua
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