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Chinese Duo Wins Badminton

ATLANTA (AP) -- Indonesian and Chinese teams took doubles gold medals in Olympic badminton Wednesday, both beating opponents they knew very well..

Ge Fei and Gu Jun of China captured the women's gold as they beat South Korea's Gil Young-ah and Jang Hye-ock, 15-5, 15-5, with the two 20-year-olds winning in less than an hour.

Indonesia's Rexy Mainaky and Ricky Subagja rallied to beat Malaysia's Cheah Soon Kit and Yap Kim Hock, 5-15, 15-13, 15-12 to win the men's title.

Both doubles finals featured foes who were quiet familiar with each other.

Over the past year the women's finalists have met seven times in finals, with Ge and Gu winning five; the men's finalists have met eight times, with the Indonesians taking seven.

The bronze medals were decided Tuesday night, with Tang Yongshu and Qin Yiyuan of China taking the women's medal and S Antonius and Denny Kantono of Indonesia coming in third for the men.

Subagja and Mainaky dropped the first set but seemed to have gotten their game back when they rushed to an 8-1 lead in the second.

Then the Malaysians battled back and even took a 12-11 lead in the second game. But Subagja and Mainaky, who have been together since 1990, came back to win the second and capture the third game and the gold medal.

In women's doubles, the younger Chinese team has taken over the title of the world's premier pair from the South Koreans, who won the world championship in 1995.

``We have played them many times and we know their strategy,'' said Ge. ``I think we succeeded.''

Gil has been successful with a number of different partners, winning the prestigious All-England title three consecutive times with different partners.

But Ge and Gu took the All-England Championships this year as well as the World Grand Prix finals.

The singles titles will be decided Thursday, and there will be a new women's champion.

Indonesia's Susi Susanti was the defending gold medalist and one of the most dominating badminton stars of all time. Bang Soo-hyun saw something wrong.

Bang, of South Korea, had spent time watching video of Susanti's play and used the knowledge to beat the Indonesian 11-9, 11-8 and reach the gold medal finals in women's play.

`I watched Susi and studied her techniques and there was always a little missing,'' said Bang, the 1992 silver medalist. ``Perhaps because her fitness is not so good now.''

Bang will play for the gold against another Indonesian, 16-year-old Mia Audina, who downed South Korea's Kim Ji-hyun in the other semifinal, 11-8, 9-11, 11-1.

Dong Jiong of China and Denmark's Paul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen advanced to the men's final. Dong topped Rashid Sidek of Malaysia, 15-6, 18-16 and Hoyer-Larsen, beat Heryanto Arbi of Indonesia 15-11, 15-6.