Wang Hao, Zhang Yining win singles gold at table tennis worlds

YOKOHAMA, Japan, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Wang Hao didn't "choke" this time as he ruined Wang Liqin's run for his fourth, or third straight, men's singles gold medal at the world table tennis championships here on Tuesday.

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Zhenglai)

Twice Olympic champion Zhang Yining came back from two sets down to beat defending champion Guo Yue for the women's singles top honor.

China swept all the gold and silver medals in the eight-day championships, leaving only three bronzes to be split up by the Hong Kong team, South Korea and host Japan.

It was China's fourth, or third straight clean-sweep of the world championship golds. The overwhelming success made Chinese table tennis boss more worried than joyous.

"I am concerned about the future of table tennis," said Cai Zhenhua, chairman of the Chinese Table Tennis Association (CTTA). "I hope not only does China enjoy table tennis, but also the whole world."

Wang Hao wins mens singles gold at table tennis worlds

YOKOHAMA, Japan, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Wang Hao beat his teammate Wang Liqin 11-9, 13-11, 11-5, 11-9 to win the men's singles event at the world table tennis championships here on Tuesday.

The top-seeded Wang Hao, twice runner-up at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, dashed Wang Liqin's dream to win his fourth, or third straight singles gold at the world championships.

Wang Liqin, whose victims included China's Olympic singles gold medallist Ma Lin, withered after losing the first two sets with the narrowest margin.

Ma Lin and Ma Long, both from China, picked bronze medals.

The Chinese national team claimed 17 medals out of 20 at the Yokohama worlds, while the Hong Kong team, South Korea and host Japan each took one.

Medal winners at table tennis worlds

Following are the medal winners at the world table tennis championships which ended In Yokohama on Tuesday:

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Competition awards clarinet talents

The second Beijing International Music Competition for Clarinet reached its highest note on Monday. Winners from this year's crop of young music talents from around the world joined maestros on stage for an awards concert at the Beijing Concert Hall.

Out of 117 contestants from nearly 20 countries and regions only six young clarinet players made it to the final round. They impressed the panel of judges with their individual understanding of music, and their fresh yet bold demonstrations of musicality.

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Valentin Uryupin of Russia eventually took first prize. He joined noted artists in performing Bartok's Contrasts for clarinet, violin, and piano.

Second prize went to Moran Katz from Israel. Chikako Kondo from Japan, and Eloise Susannah Fisher from Australia shared third prize.

Han Kim, a South Korean clarinet student who is at the tender age of 13, was honored as "The Most Promising Young Artist".

After receiving the award, he played Debussy's Rhapsody for the packed house.

Gerd Starke, the chairman of jury of the second Beijing International Music Competition said, "Chinese contestants performed very well. 22 Chinese contestants made it to the semi-finals, but unfortunately they didn't make it to the final round. I hope there will be more Chinese contestants appearing in the final round next time."

The 2nd Beijing International Music Competition attempts a repeat of the successful Nicolet Flute venture in 2006. This time it focuses on clarinet. The competition scans the world to support gifted young clarinetists and to find budding musicians with excellent potentials. It also creates an international dialogue of music.

Apart from the in-competition categories, the event also tailors master-classes for clarinet lovers at the Beijing Concert Hall.

The 2nd Beijing International Music Competition ends on Wednesday.

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Book doctor rescues old documents

A specialist in the Chinese capital is working on restoring ancient images of a different kind -- words, not pictures. Sixty-year-old Du Weisheng works as a researcher at the rare book division of China's National Library in Beijing. Over the years, he's been racing against time to rescue ancient tomes and scripts that have been damaged by water, moulding from improper storage and chewed on by rats.

Du Weisheng is in a race against time to rescue old documents that are falling apart.

The book doctor says some of the books he fixes require extreme concentration and patience.

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imagesofadifferentkind--words,notpictures

He uses a special glue and rice paper that are of similar colour to patch up thousands of visible or invisible holes on book pages with the help of a magnifier.

However, this is the easiest part of his job.

Many books have been soaked by flood waters for a long time and have never properly dried.

Most of their pages are stuck together.

Many more older books simply fall into fragmentary pieces once touched.

Du says erosion happens too fast and with a small staff of 19 people in the rare book division, it is impossible to fix all the books that need to be rescued.

Du Weisheng said, "Books we need to fix take up to a third of the collection in the library, which is around 2 million books. A third of that makes it around 700,000 books. About 20 percent of the 700,000 books need urgent fixing, which means more than 100,000 books are in very bad condition. We fix about 1,000 books per year and the best we can do is no more than 2,000. This means it's going to take us a very, very long time before we can finish this task".

During a career spanning 35 years, Du has fixed close to 5,000 ancient books himself.

Du says that the solution for the future is to digitalise all the materials before they are gone.

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