China's sporting dominance was unchallenged as they swept 19 out of 28 gold medals on the first full day's competition at the 16th Asian Games here on Saturday, but it is still too early to predict whether they can regain their dominance in the pool.

The Chinese swimmers, whose supremacy in Asian swimming was ended by Japan four years ago in Doha, struggled to take an early advantage over the arch rivals in the day's six events.

The much-anticipated fierce race between the two countries ended with the host winning the four women's events and the Japanese better in the two men's. But the clashes were far closer than the golds suggested.

Zhu Qianwei of China, silver medalist at the Beijing Olympics, won the first swimming gold from the women's 200 meters freestyle. Wang Randi won the women's 50 meters breaststroke. The women's 100m butterfly was won by Chinese teenager swimmer Jiao Liuyang.

The women's 4x100 meters medley relay was a thriller, with China touching first, less than half a second adrift of Japan. Hong Kong took bronze.

China's Wu Peng was denied a third consecutive Asian Games gold in the men's 200 meters butterfly, finishing a distant fourth. Japan's Takeshi Matsuda, bronze medal winner at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, took the gold.

Four years ago in Doha, China and Japan closed the swimming competition on 16 gold medals each, with Japan finishing ahead 47-42 ahead in the total medal count.

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