World champion swimmer Yana Klochkova powered to victory in the 200 meters individual medley yesterday in a Universiade Games record time, while Irina Chaschina and her teammates dominated gymnastics to lift Russia atop the medal table.

　　The United States, which won five consecutive University Games until placing second to China at Beijing in 2001, won its first gold medals at Daegu in swimming and taekwondo.

　　Auburn's Demerae Christianson secured the first gold for the Americans, winning the women's 100 butterfly in 1 minute, 00.42 seconds, holding off Australia's Katherine Corkran and Russian Irina Bespalova in a lunge to the finish.

　　Daniel Elkowitz beat Dolas Kadir of Turkey in the men's 54-kilogram taekwondo division to give the Ameri-cans a rare win in the ancient Korean martial art.

　　Backing up from her world championship winning swim in Barcelona last month, Klochkova clocked 2:13.32 in the 200 IM to slash almost a second off her own games mark and give Ukraine its third gold medal. Her team moved into fourth place on the standings, behind Russia (12 gold, six silver, 14 bronze), host South Korea (11-3-2) and China (10-8-5).

　　Russia was the biggest mover on the fifth day, with Chaschina, 20, winning gold in each of the hoop, ball and clubs individual apparatus to go with her win on Sunday in the individual all-round in rhythmic gymnastics.

　　Her compatriots won two further team gold medals in gymnastics, while the race walkers gave Russia the first two gold medals on the track.

　　China continued its total dominance in the diving, when world champion pair Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia overawed the field in the women's 3-meter synchro-nized diving competition, finishing 40 points clear of second-place with 328.80 points.

　　It was a second gold medal here for Wu, who upset Guo to win the 1-meter springboard on Sunday.

　　"It was easy because everyone else made mistakes," said Wu.

　　The Chinese collected a 1-2 finish in the men's 1-meter springboard with Wang Feng and Wang Tianling finishing in the samesgroupsas they did at the 2001 World Cham-pionships in Japan.

　　Britain picked up its second gold medal in the pool, when the men's 400 freestyle relay team first overcoming Australia and then regaining the lead from Russia in the final stretch to hold on for first place in 3:20.59.

　　The Australians were second and Ukraine was third.

　　Germany's Petra Dallman won the women's 100 freestyle in 55.51, edging Asian champion Xu Yanwei of China into second and Tomoko Nagai into third.

　　The track and field program started with Stephan Yudin winning the men's 20-kilometer walk and Tatiana Sibileva winning the women's walk.

　　Yudin led a Russian 1-2-3, finishing in 1 hour, 23 minutes and 34 seconds to edge Vladimir Potemin and Vasily Ivanov.

　　Silileva clocked 1:34:55 to beat China's Jian Xingli and another Russian, Tatian Korotkova, took bronze.