A South Korean rider died on Thursday during the equestrian competition of the rain-plagued Asian Games causing the postponement of several events.

Kim Hyung Chil, 47, was killed as his horse Bundaberg Black was caught on an obstacle in wet and difficult conditions and collapsed onto him during the cross-country event.

"The rider bore the weight of Bundaberg Black when the horse fell trying to clear an obstacle," Dr. Abdulwahal Al-Mussleh, head for health care and doping control of the DACOG, told a press conference.

Al-Mussleh said that Kim was rushed to Hamad General Hospital near the athletes village, but died shortly after arrival without recovering consciousness. "He was declared dead at 10:50 am," added Abdulwahal.

The heaviest rain Doha had seen in 42 years in fell from early morning, washing out the soft tennis and tennis competitions but Christopher Hodson, vice president of the International Equestrian Federation (IEF), rejected speculations that wet conditions caused Kim's death.

"We have opened a formal inquiry into this tragic accident. I don't want to speculate on the results of that inquiry until it is completed," said Hodson. "To my knowledge it is the first time this has happened at the Asian Games."

Kim was the oldest member of South Korea's equestrian team. He won silver in the team competition in Busan 2002.?

A minute's silence was observed in all venues to mourn the fallen rider, which shell-shocked the whole South Korean delegation.

In the early morning amidst pouring rain, the athletics competition kicked off and produced two gold medals. Chinese walkers won both with Han Yucheng and Liu Yong winning the men and women's 20km event respectively.

South Korea's boy wonder Park Tae Hwan shone in the last day of the swimming competition during whcih Tao Li brought Singapore the only gold medal in this sport here.

Japan was the biggest winner of the day, taking three golds to tie China at 16 in total while China had one gold to their name.

The 17-year-old Park, already a 200m free gold winner, rewrote the Asian Games record once again when he took gold in the men's 1,500m in 14 minutes 55.03 seconds to shatter the previous record by 5.24 seconds.

The 16-year-old Tao, born in China, stunned Asian Games champions to win the women's 50m butterfly, a newly-added event in the swimming program.

World short course champion Qi Hui clinched the 200m individual medley title to give China their only gold of the night.

Double Athens Olympic champion Kosuke Kitajima easily kept his 200m breaststroke title providing a nice 1-2 following his triumph in the 100m on Monday. Junya Koga took the men's 50m backstroke title with Japan's other gold coming from the men's 4x100m medley relay.

China again missed a clean sweep of seven gold medals in the table tennis tournament after eight days of competition. Paddlers from Hong Kong snatched the only gold missing from China's pocket, after Li Ching and Ko Lai Chak handed a shock 4-2 defeat to China's Olympic champions Ma Lin and Chen Qi.

On Thursday afternoon, it was all about China who celebrated triple victories in the mixed doubles, women's singles and men's singles finals.

Former world champions Ma Lin and Wang Nan won the mixed doubles final against newly-combined Lee Jung Woo and Lee Eun Hee after shutting out a late comeback from the South Koreans.

The women's singles title went to China's teenage paddler Guo Yue, who managed to hold her nerves to rally past veteran Tie Yana of Hong Kong 4-3 to claim her first victory in major tournament. Wang Hao won the final between teammates for the men's singles gold.

Ding Junhui, winner of the snooker UK Championship last year, retained his singles title on Thursday, beating fellow Chinese Liang Wenbo 4-2 in the final. The 19-year-old will fly straight to Britain to defend his UK Championship starting in York this weekend.

With seven more gold medals from shooting (3), rowing (3) and taekwondo (1), China's gold medal tally rose to 90. Japan remains second with 26 and South Korea is third with 19. Kazakhstan stands fourth with 10.

(Xinhua News Agency December 8, 2006)