Chinese women biathletes became invincible and their men compatriots also caught up while Japan regained their second overall place in the sixth Asian Winter Games on Friday.

With the last eight golds to be on offer on Saturday, China stood atop with 17 golds, 15 silvers and 19 bronzes, Japan overtook South Korea to a distant second on 10-7-11 against 9-12-10. Kazakhstan were in fourth on 3-5-6 and Mongolia remained as the only other country on the tally with one bronze.

The Chinese men completed a perfect show time by winning their 4x7.5km relay, the fifth for China of the seven biathlon gold medals on offer at the Beidahu ski resort in Jilin, after their women athletes claimed the 4x6km relay for a clean sweep of all four golds for women at the Games.

Veteran Liu Xianying, 30, became the sole athlete of the Games with three golds to her name after taking 7.5km sprint, 15km individual and relay. And Chinese ace Kong Yingchao also claimed the 10km pursuit title.

"Chinese women have been listed among the top athletes in the world, they are likely to be the world number one tomorrow, but the men biathletes still have a long way to go," said former International Biathlon Union (IBU) vice-chairman Ubaldo Prucker on Friday.

The other two biathlon golds were split by Kazakhstan and Japan, with men's 20km individual title going to Kazakhstan on Thursday and Japan winning the men's 10km sprint on Monday.

"The Chinese biathletes are improving fast, and they really impressed us with their World Cup results ahead of the Asian jamboree," said Yelena Khrustaleva, the last skier for the Kazakhstan relay team.

However, Khrustaleva signaled a warning that "we have imported some excellent athletes from our cross-country team, and let's see what will happen in the next few years."

The 7th Asian Winter Games will be held at Almaty, Kazakhstan, and the central Asian country is also in a bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Also in Jilin, Japan was on the way to monopoly the Alpine skiing by reaping their third straight gold medal through Chika Kato who won the women's slalom on Friday.

Kato notched a combined time of one minute and 24.83 seconds for the victory, beating teammate Moe Hanaoka to the second place in 1: 25.78. Earlier, both the men's and women's giant slalom titles also became the collection of the Japanese skiers on Wednesday and Thursday.

Oh Jae-Eun of South Korea settled for the bronze with 1:27.77 ahead of Chinese Miao Liyan, who came in fourth with 1:28.31.

"I could have done better," said Miao, who also placed fourth in the giant slalom. "But I was not good enough in the second run. I thought I could overtake Oh in the second run, but that thought distracted me."

In the women's single figure skating, Japanese Yukari Nakano scored the best of 105.02 while compatriot Fumie Suguri committed errors in her presentation for the third-best of 103.55 in the free skating.

Thus, Nakano stood atop the podium with a total of 162.38 points, Suguri got the silver in 162.05 and Chinese Xu Shubin had the bronze in 159.02.

(Xinhua News Agency February 3, 2007)