Jakarta: Japan’s golden girl Rikako Ikee stormed to a record sixth Asian Games swimming title on Friday, marking a handful of other firsts for good measure.
Competing on the final evening, China’s colossus Sun Yang crushed the men’s 1,500m to finish with a fab four individual freestyle titles in Jakarta.
Japan and China finished with 19 swimming gold medals each after a titanic struggle over six days, with the Japanese shading the overall medal count by 52 to 50.
But Ikee stole the show by edging the 50m freestyle sprint from China’s Liu Xiang to become the first woman in any sport to scoop six gold medals at a single Games.
Ikee is now poised to be the face of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to be held in her home city. (AFP)
