Of the day's other 10 gold medals, both hosts China and South Korea grabbed four apiece, with Japan winning the remaining two. China took two speedskating crowns, one each from short track and women's aerials, while South Korea got three out of the four short-track golds, with the other from the men's speedskating.

After the Day-3 finals, China maintained their top position in the tally on a 12-11-14 sheet, Japan (7-2-7) kept a slim advantage over South Korea (6-10-6) by one gold, and Kazakhstan ranked in a distant fourth place with two golds, four silvers and four bronzes.

Kazakhstan, who collected only two silvers earlier, displayed their supremacy in the women's 5km classical and men's 30km free, missing only one bronze from the two finals.

Oxana Yatskaya led a 1-2 finish in the women's classical, clocking in 15 minutes and 57.73 seconds, beating compatriot Svetlana Malakhova by 1.69 seconds. Chinese Wang Chunli, the sprint winner on Tuesday, settled for the third place.

"I am honored to win the gold medal," said Yatskaya. "The Chinese skiers are competitive in the event, I am very happy that I can beat them for the victory."

The Kazakh men further justified their traditional powerhouse status in winter sports, making a clean sweep of medals in the 30km freestyle skiing.

Maxim Odnodvortsev took the gold medal in 1:22:44, Andrey Kondryshev and Andrey Golovko finished second and third in 1:24:05 and 1:24:32 respectively.

For the other two skiing golds of the day, Chinese Li Nina lived up to her Olympic runner-up reputation to win the women's aerials and Emiko Kiyosawa of Japan took the women's giant slalom.

In a five-member two-team women's aerials, Li Nina led an easy Chinese charge for a clean sweep of the top three after she scored 194.57 points, 17-year-old teammate Xu Mengtao recorded 184.88 points, and Zhang Xin, 21, was third in 175.40.

"Racing at home made me much more nervous as I have to compete against my teammates, while in Europe we are working in a team," said Li.

Kiyosawa, 22nd in the recent Winter Universiade in Italy, stormed to victory in the women's giant slalom by clocking 2:08.92. Oh Jae-Eun and Kim Sun-Joo, both of South Korea, took the silver and bronze medals.

China added two more speedskating gold medals from the women's finals when Wang Fei clocked an Asian record-breaking time of two minutes 00.49 seconds in the 1,500m, beating the previous best of 2:01.02, and Xing Aihua brought the hosts their fourth speedskating gold, winning in 10.41 seconds in the 100m which was added to the Games program for the first time.

"I was both nervous and excited but now I am surprisingly calm, " said Wang who beat Lee Ju-Youn of South Korea and teammate Ji Jia for her second title after won the opening 3,000m race of the Games on Monday. "The 1,500m is my favorite event, I was more prepared to win."

South Korean Lee Kyou-Hyuk, runner-up in the 500m on Tuesday, snatched the men's 1,500m speedskating gold by leveling the Asian record of 1:49.13, and Yuya Oikawa pulled off the men's 100m victory in 9.59 seconds, the second speedskating gold for Japan after the men's 5,000m.

On the short track rink, South Korea became the biggest winners of the day as they struck all the golds except the women's 3,000m relay, which was won by China led by Olympic champion Wang Meng.

After three-day competitions, China and South Korea had a fair split of all the eight short-track titles, a great leap from the Turin Winter Olympics where South Korea had six of the eight with China winning the women's 500m only.

In Changchun, China won the women's 500m and 3,000m relay as well as the men's 500m and 1,500m, while the South Koreans skated faster than the Chinese in the men's 1,000m and 5,000m relay, and the women's 1,000m and 1,500m.

Mongolia also made the medal podium of the Winter Asiad with a shared bronze medal despite a distant fifth and last-place finish from Maral Unenbat in the women's aerials as competition regulations stipulate that no team can sweep all medals in any events of the Games, the same case for Japan in the men's 30km skiing.