China, Japan and South Korea, which took the top three ranks of the medals table on the first day of Jakarta Asian Games 2018, August 18, have maintained their lead six days after the event opened by adding more medals to their tally.
China is in the top spot with a total of 139 medals including 66 gold, 46 silver and 27 bronze. Japan is second and has 103 medals (29 gold, 31 silver and 43 bronze). South Korea follows the two with 75 medals (21 gold, 26 silver and 28 bronze).
Although there are ten days left before the end of the continental tournament, the huge gap between the number of medals (especially gold) China and Japan have won implies that China will again remain in the top place as it was in the past nine editions.
Held every four years since 1951, the Asian multi-sport event - also known as Asiad - has so far been held in nine countries. However, during the past 17 editions there have been only two nations on the top of the medal table. Japan was dominant during the first eight editions but since the ninth edition in 1982 China emerged with the highest number of medals.
This year, both China and Japan have won the most medals in swimming. Of the total 138 medals China collected, 50 have been in swimming (over one third of the total count). The ratio for Japan is even more as its swimmers took 52 medals which makes half of the overall 103.
Iran is fourth in the ranking with 31 medals (12 gold, 11 silver and 8 bronze) and host country Indonesia is fifth with 30 medals (nine gold, eight silver and 13 bronze).
North Korea, Taiwan, India, Thailand and Uzbekistan are in sixth to tenth places respectively.
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