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China Wins Record 169 Asian Games Golds Overseas as Hong Kong's Coleman Wong Makes Tennis History
Reporter 欧亚时报编辑部
The roughly two-week-long 2026 Asian Games closed on October 4 in Aichi Prefecture and the city of Nagoya, Japan. The Games opened on September 19 and ran for 16 days, drawing about 17,000 athletes from across Asia competing in 469 events across 43 sports. In the end, China's delegation topped both the gold-medal and overall medal tables with 169 gold, 89 silver and 83 bronze medals for 341 medals in total — marking the 12th consecutive Asian Games in which China has topped the gold-medal table. More historically significant still, the 169 golds marked China's best-ever performance at an Asian Games held outside China, surpassing the previous overseas record of 165 golds set at the 2006 Doha Asian Games in Qatar — a record that had stood for exactly 20 years.
Several outlets reported that China's 166th gold medal came in men's golf, a result that officially broke the 165-gold record Doha had held for 20 years — a moment widely seen as symbolically significant. In the final country rankings, host Japan finished second with 83 gold, 95 silver and 91 bronze for 269 medals; South Korea was third with 39 gold, 43 silver and 68 bronze; and India finished fourth with 21 gold, 27 silver and 37 bronze for 85 medals in total. Overall, China's delegation continued to dominate its traditional strong events such as swimming, diving, table tennis, badminton and gymnastics, while host Japan drew on home advantage to pick up medals across events including swimming and athletics, and traditional sporting powers South Korea and India likewise built on their own areas of strength.
Looking sport by sport, China's delegation kept up its dominance in traditional strongholds: the swimming team took 30 gold, 13 silver and 11 bronze; the diving team swept all 10 available golds, marking the 14th consecutive Asian Games in which China's diving "dream team" has claimed a clean sweep; the table tennis team won 6 gold, 4 silver and 1 bronze — though the men's team event produced an upset loss that cost China gold there, the women's team and various doubles events performed solidly; and badminton brought home 2 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze, a relatively modest showing. At the same time, several outlets noted that China's overall results in team ball sports — basketball, volleyball and football, often grouped together as the "big three ball games" — were underwhelming, seen as one of the few weak spots amid this gold-medal haul.
Looking at the longer trend, China's gold-medal count at Asian Games held outside China has climbed steadily over time: 125 golds at the 1994 Hiroshima Games, rising to 150 at the 2002 Busan Games and 165 at the 2006 Doha Games — a record that stood for 20 years until it was broken by China's 166th gold at this Nagoya Games, with the final tally reaching 169. By contrast, China's all-time high at an Asian Games held on home soil is considerably higher: at the 2023 Hangzhou Games (postponed from 2022 because of COVID-19), China's delegation won as many as 201 golds, still the highest total ever at a single Asian Games. But because competing on home soil is generally considered an advantage, the overseas gold-medal record is seen as a more telling gauge of China's genuine sporting strength.
One of the most closely followed "dark horse" stories of these Games came from Hong Kong, China tennis player Coleman Wong. The 22-year-old, ranked around 100th in the world, beat Chinese national team player Wu Yibing in straight sets, 6-2, 6-4, in the men's singles final at the Higashiyama Park Tennis Centre in Nagoya to win gold. Wong served superbly throughout the match, firing 16 aces against just a single double fault, and closed out the final game with four consecutive aces to seal victory — a performance well above what his world ranking might suggest. The gold marked a historic breakthrough for Hong Kong's delegation in Asian Games tennis: no Hong Kong player had ever won a tennis singles gold medal at the Asian Games before, making Wong the first Hong Kong player to reach the top of an Asian Games tennis podium.
The gold also carries major personal significance for Wong: under this Games' Olympic qualification rules, winning the title directly secured him a place at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Wong has long cited retired Spanish tennis legend Rafael Nadal as his idol and inspiration, and said after the match he hoped for a chance to discuss this hard-won Asian Games gold with Nadal in person one day. Notably, Wong had already made history simply by reaching the semi-finals, which guaranteed Hong Kong its first-ever Asian Games tennis singles medal; he then kept winning, upgrading that medal from bronze or silver to the most valuable one of all — gold — completing a "double history" moment for Hong Kong tennis.
Beyond China's record medal haul and Hong Kong tennis's historic breakthrough, these Asian Games were also dubbed a "youth storm" by media for the standout performances of young athletes. Thirteen-year-old Chinese swimmer Yu Zidi became one of the Games' biggest stories, winning three gold medals — in the women's 200m butterfly and the 200m and 400m individual medley — all in Games-record times, and was later named one of the Games' MVPs. Host Japan's 17-year-old swimmer Shin Ohashi set a world record in the men's 200m breaststroke, while 20-year-old Thai sprinter Puripol Boonson swept both the men's 100m and 200m sprints and was named the Games' male MVP. The emergence of these young athletes led many to view this edition of the Asian Games as an important stage showcasing the rise of a new generation of Asian athletes.
The Games were not without controversy, however. Several international outlets reported around the closing ceremony that the Aichi-Nagoya Games had faced considerable organisational problems, including transport chaos, uneven coordination of accommodation around some venues, and a gap between the sheer scale of the event and organisers' original vision of a "simple, streamlined and efficient" Games; some competition days were also disrupted by weather, including rain. Al Jazeera and other outlets described the Games as closing "amid teen triumph and organisational chaos." At the closing ceremony, Olympic Council of Asia president Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al Thani formally declared the Games closed and handed the host flag to the organisers of the next edition — the 2030 Asian Games, to be held in Doha, Qatar. That means Doha, the very city where China set its previous overseas gold-medal record 20 years ago, will once again be the stage on which China's delegation tries to break its own record.
