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Ng Siu-ching belatedly celebrated her 30th birthday last night by winning the women's nanquan event in wushu to give Hong Kong its fourth gold medal at the 13th Asian Games.

 And 45 minutes afterwards, the SAR increased its harvest with Leung Yat-ho taking the silver medal in the men's nanquan.

 The two wushu medals take Hong Kong's overall tally to 14 - four golds, four silvers and six bronze. This is the best-ever haul for Hong Kong, bettering by two the dozen medals won at the Hiroshima Games four years ago.

 Ng, Hong Kong's leading woman in the Chinese martial arts, who crossed the threshold into her 30-something years on Tuesday, stormed to victory with a rigorous routine combining grace and power.

 'It is great to win the gold at last. This is the third time I have tried to win it and at last I was successful,' said Ng.

 Wushu has been an Asian Games sport ever since China introduced it back in 1990 at the Beijing Games. Ng won bronze that year. Four years later in Hiroshima she repeated that performance.

 After two bronze medals she was unsatisfied when she arrived here in Bangkok. Quite rightly so, for she is the reigning world champion at this discipline having taken gold at the World Championships in Rome last year.

 'Before I came here, I had won six gold medals . . . from the World Championships, the Asian Championships and East Asian Games, but never at these Games.

 'It was important to me that I won this time,' said Ng.

 She remained non-committal on the question whether this was her swan song. But if it proves to be so, there could not be a more fitting stage to make her bow from a long and illustrious career.

 A field of 10 athletes took to the stage in the women's nanquan yesterday. Significantly, China had not entered a competitor in this event. A ruling which limits the number of participants, saw China opt to field athletes in sanshou (sparring) which was making its first appearance.

 The absence of any mainland Chinese competitors gave Ng a much better chance. Her only real obstacle was a girl from Macau - Lei Fei - who had beaten Ng to silver at the last Games.

 Lei was drawn before Ng and she finished her routine to raucous cheers from a strong Macanese contingent. Lei was awarded 9.40 by the five judges.

 Ng turned in a dazzling performance which was given a rating of 9.45. That was enough to clinch gold.

 Leung clinched the silver with a score of 9.38. China's Lang Rongbiao took the gold with 9.51.

 Meanwhile Hong Kong's other top medal contender, cycling ace Wong Kam-po finished seventh in yesterday's 40 kilometres points race. Wong, who is gearing up for tomorrow's road race, had a glimpse of his potential rivals, mainly Kazakhstan's Sergey Lavrenenko and South Korea's Cho Ho-sung who took first and second place respectively yesterday.

 Hong Kong's equestrian team were lying in fifth position in the team jumping event yesterday. But Elise Anne McAuley, riding Vercors Rouge, was not celebrating as she had seen her position in the individual rankings slip from joint-sixth to 19th after two rounds.



Ng adds gold, Leung silver as SAR enjoys wushu success