Asian Games Wrap Up Their First Week in Hangzhou, China

 The crowd cheers with Chinese flags during the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. (AP)
The crowd cheers with Chinese flags during the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. (AP)
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Asian Games Wrap Up Their First Week in Hangzhou, China

 The crowd cheers with Chinese flags during the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. (AP)
The crowd cheers with Chinese flags during the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. (AP)

The two-week Asian Games featuring 12,500 participants from 45 nations and territories have completed their first week in China.

The opening ceremony in the packed 80,000-seat Olympic Sports Center Stadium in Hangzhou featured electronic flash, 3D animations and a virtual torchbearer.

Many of the 481 events offer a chance for smaller delegations to win medals, which is often impossible at the Olympics. The regional fare includes dragon boat racing, sepaktakraw — sometimes called “kick volleyball” — wushu, a Chinese martial art, and kabaddi, a popular contact sport on the Indian subcontinent.

Add to this a long list of what organizers call “mind sports” from bridge to chess to xiangqi (Chinese chess) to esports like League of Legends.

South Korea’s League of Legends team won not only the gold medal but also an exemption from military service at home. In South Korea, the law exempts athletes, classical and traditional musicians, and ballet and other dancers from military service if they have obtained top prizes in certain competitions and are assessed to have enhanced national prestige.

The youngest member of the nearly 900-strong delegation from China, a 13-year-old skateboarder, is going home with a gold medal in women’s street skateboarding. Cui Chenxi is already planning for next year’s Paris Olympics.

Nine sports at the Asian Games offer qualification spots for the Olympics — archery, artistic swimming, boxing, breaking, hockey, modern pentathlon, sailing, tennis, and water polo.



Al Rajhi Takes over Dakar Rally Lead after Miserable Stage for Lategan

 Driver Yazeed Al Rajhi and co-driver Timo Gottschalk compete during the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally between Riyadh and Haradh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP)
Driver Yazeed Al Rajhi and co-driver Timo Gottschalk compete during the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally between Riyadh and Haradh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP)
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Al Rajhi Takes over Dakar Rally Lead after Miserable Stage for Lategan

 Driver Yazeed Al Rajhi and co-driver Timo Gottschalk compete during the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally between Riyadh and Haradh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP)
Driver Yazeed Al Rajhi and co-driver Timo Gottschalk compete during the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally between Riyadh and Haradh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP)

Local driver Yazeed Al Rajhi took advantage of a miserable stage by South Africa's Henk Lategan to grab the Dakar Rally lead in the Saudi Arabia desert on Tuesday.

Lategan led the Dakar for the past week, but errors and bad luck on the 357-kilometer ninth stage from Riyadh south-east to Haradh turned his overall lead of more than five minutes over Al Rajhi into a potentially decisive seven-minute deficit.

The rally has effectively two days and 400 kilometers remaining in the dunes of the Empty Quarter. The last day, Friday, is a ceremonial drive to the finish line in Shubaytah.

Al Rajhi, like Lategan, has never won the Dakar. This is the Saudi's 11th attempt with a best finish of third in 2022. He'd been lying second since last Wednesday. The title race appears to be between only them.

Third-placed Mattias Ekström of Sweden and five-time champion Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar were about 25 minutes behind.

“It's a bit of disaster to be honest,” Lategan said. “About 13 kilometers in we got lost. We thought we missed the waypoint but we actually had it. When we got lost we got one puncture and then towards the end we got another one and the wheel is actually flat. So, it was a messy, messy, messy day for us but it's not the end of the world, we're still in it.”

Lategan and navigator Brett Cummings were 11th on the stage and Al Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk third.

“We did a great job like we planned to,” Al Rajhi said. “We pushed well. We enjoyed it, that's the most important. I hope everything goes well the next two or three days to win the Dakar ... I will fight to win. It won't be easy.”

Al-Attiyah won the stage ahead of Belgium’s Guillaume de Mévius in under three hours to rise to one minute off third place overall.

His 49th car stage win, and first in the Dakar for Romanian manufacturer Dacia, lifted him to only one behind the record jointly held by Finland's Ari Vatanen and France's Stephane Peterhansel.

Sanders cushions motorbike lead Australian rider Daniel Sanders bolstered his motorbike lead to nearly 15 minutes when closest challenger, Spain's Tosha Schareina, crashed early.

The back wheel of Schareina's Honda hit a rock and sent him flying only 20 kilometers in. He resumed racing but the nearly four minutes he finished behind Sanders dropped him in the general standings.

Schareina's teammate Adrien van Beveren of France remained third, more than 20 minutes behind, while Sanders' KTM teammate Luciano Benavides of Argentina strengthened his position in fourth place by winning his second successive stage.

Benavides, thanks to collecting time bonuses of nearly five minutes by opening the way, beat Van Beveren by nearly two minutes, and repeated his win into Haradh two years ago. Sanders was third after leading until about 70 kilometers from the end.

“I only got lost a couple of times ... and lost a little bit of time,” Sanders said. “I could have pushed and made some more (time) but it's not too bad.”