Ikee shines with six

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 for elbow room 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 by a fingertip from China’s Liu Xiang, clocking 24.53 seconds to become the first woman in any sport to scoop six gold medals at a single Games.

The 18-year-old allowed herself a rare display of emotion, raising a fist as she soaked up the applause of her besotted Japanese fans before shedding a few tears as the enormity of her achievement sank in. “I really hate losing, I probably won that more through sheer willpower,” said Ikee, who had already snaffled gold in the 50m fly, 100m fly, 100m free, 4x100m free and the 4x100m medley. “The last few minutes hurt but I was just focusing on the touch and luckily I hung on. I used pretty much every last drop of energy.”