China's badminton brilliance

China swept the women's doubles led by Ge and Gu

China capped a superb Olympic badminton tournament on Saturday by winning its fourth gold medal out of the five on offer.

Ji Xinpeng sealed China's breathtaking success by securing the men's singles title on a night of glory for his country.

It followed Ge Fei and Gu Jun's retention of the Olympic women's doubles gold, leading a Chinese clean sweep of the medals in that event.

That was the first time that all the medals in one competition had gone to a single nation since badminton entered the Olympics at the 1992 Games in Barcelona. Only the men's doubles, in which the Chinese failed to get any medal, eluded them.

That gold went to Indonesia's Tony Gunawan and Candra Wijaya, but their compatriot Hendrawan was unable to compete with Ji in the men's singles final.

Triumphant

China's seventh seed emerged triumphant 15-4, 15-13 after mixing deft touches with sudden lightning strikes.

The final success against the second seed followed up Ji's quarter-final win over the top seed, Indonesia's Taufik Hidayat, and semi-final defeat of the world number one, Denmark's Peter Gade.

Gade failed to even get on the podium when he lost the bronze medal play-off 15-13, 15-5 to China's fourth seed Xia Xuanze.

Ge and Gu confirmed their position as the best in the world in women's doubles by winning in Sydney without dropping a game along the way.

All-chinese final

In an all-Chinese final, the top seeds comfortably beat their second-seeded compatriots Huang Nanyan and Yang Wei 15-5, 15-5.

Ge and Gu's second Olympic gold followed wins at the last two world championships.

Gao Ling and Qin Yiyuan, the sixth seeds, beat the third-seeded Koreans Chung Jae-Hee and Ra Kyung-Min 15-10, 15-4 in the match for the bronze.