China accelerated its pace of grasping gold medals at the East Asian Games in Osaka, Japan, on Monday with swimming competitions started while actions going on in weightlifting.

Chinese swimmers took three of five golds on offer Monday, one more than their arch rivals of Japan.

Xu Yanwei is the brightest star in the Osaka pool as she won the first swimming gold of the Games and then helped the Chinese win the women's 4x200 meters freestyle relay title.

Xu clocked 55.02 seconds to take the 100m freestyle event, the Games' frist swimming final. Her compatriot Liu Yu took the men's 200m freestyle event.

Japanese swimmers won the men's 100m breaststroke and women's 400m individual medley titles.

The weightlifting competitions continued on Monday with four gold medals at stake. Chinese lifters took all the titles in the three categories they took part in.

The Chinese women's gymnasts totaled 149.250 points to win the team title, beating Japan by nearly 9 points. South Korea finished third at 130.875.

But Monday turned to be a sad day for Chinese basketball, both in men's and women's tournaments. China lost to South Korea in the tournaments.

The Chinese men's team lost 100-97 to the high-spirited South Korean team. The new Chinese national team under head coach Wang Fei is weak in teamwork and defence.

The Chinese women's basketball side suffered their second straight defeat in two days, losing 99-84 to South Korea, thus having their hopes shattered for the title in the single round robin tournament.

After Monday's competitions, China has 10 gold medals to its credit on the Games' medals table, followed by South Korea and Japan with six and four gold medals respectively.

(People's Daily 05/22/2001)