Christie wins host Indonesia’s signature gold at Asian Games

Jonatan Christie of Indonesia celebrates after defeating Kenta Nishimoto of Japan during their men’s badminton singles semifinal match at the 18th Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, Aug. 27, 2018. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

JAKARTA, Indonesia— Every host has a signature event that defines the success of the games, at least in context of sport.

Jonatan Christie won that for the 2018 Asian Games hosts with a 21-18, 20-22, 21-15 win over Taiwan’s Chou Tien-chen to secure the badminton men’s singles gold medal for Indonesia.

The 21-year-old Christie, nicknamed Jojo, grabbed the national attention with his shirt-shredding celebration following his semifinal win over Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto and enhanced it with his pressure-packed win in the final.

Just like national hero Tan Joe Hok did in 1962 when Indonesia last hosted the games.

Badminton is the national sport in Indonesia, although it hasn’t won the men’s singles title at the Asian Games since Taufik Hidayat won back-to-back golds in 2002 and ’06. China’s Lin Dan won both in between.

The hosts picked up another badminton gold in the men’s doubles — it was an all-Indonesian final — after top-ranked Tai Tzu-ying of Taiwan beat India’s Olympic and world championship silver medalist and millionaire Pusarla Venkata Sindhu 21-13, 21-16 in 36 minutes for the women’s singles final.

The Jiang twins from China created history by winning the duet in the synchronized swimming, returning to the Asian Games after extended breaks to have children.

Jiang Wenwen and Jian Tingting won the duet titles at the 2006 and 2010 editions of the Asian Games and reunited for another gold in Jakarta.

The 32-year-old siblings, the oldest artistic swimmers to compete at the Asian Games, topped the technical and free routines to win with 186.5101 points, more than four clear of Yukiko Inui and Megumu Yoshida who took silver for Japan. Another set of twins, Yekaterina and Alexandra Nemich, collected bronze for Kazakhstan.

There are 31 gold medals on the line in 12 sports on the 10th day of competition in the co-host cities of Jakarta and Palembang.