Japan beat China to win the men's 4X100m freestyle relay swimming at the 2018 Asian Games on Wednesday evening. Japan won the race in three minutes 12.68 seconds, while China ranked second in   3:13.29. 

In the heats earlier in the day, China's Hou Yujie, Qian Zhiyong, Ma Tianchi and Ji Xinjie topped all other teams at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium’s Aquatic Center in Jakarta. But in the finals, Japan's quartet of Shioura Shinri, Matsumoto Katsuhiro, Nakamura Katsumi and Mizohata Juran were faster than China's line-up of Yang Jintong, Cao Jiwen, Sun Yang and Yu Hexin.

Japan dominated the final, in all the four legs.

During the third leg, China lagged by 1.33 seconds behind Japan as three-time Olympic champion Sun Yang lost steam following three grueling days of competition.

Yu Hexin managed to narrow the margin to 0.61 seconds in the fourth leg, helping China bag the silver.

In other events in the pool on Wednesday, Singapore’s Joseph Isaac Schooling won the men’s 100m butterfly for the second time in a row at the Asian Games. He was the only swimming gold medalist so far from neither China or Japan at the 2018 Asian Games.

China, however, bagged gold in the women’s 200m freestyle thanks to 16-year-old Li Bingjie, and the women’s 200m butterfly gold went to Zhang Yufei, also from China. 

Meanwhile Chinese Xu Jiayu, Yan Zibei, Zhang Yufei and Zhu Menghui grabbed gold in the mixed 4x100m medley relay, with a record of 3:40.45 sec.

Xu Jiayu became the second athlete, after compatriot Sun Yang, to win three gold medals so far at this year's edition of the Asian Games.

(Top picture: Swimming teams competing in the men's 4x100m freestyle relay in the 2018 Asian Games stand on the podium. /VCG Photo)