China's women's volleyball team celebrate with their medals after winning the gold medal at the 15th Asian Games in Doha December 12, 2006. [Reuters]

The Chinese women volleyballers waltzed through the Asiad gold medal match against Japan, beating their arch rivals 22-25, 25-10, 25-23 and 25-16 to take home their third consecutive Asiad's gold medal here on Tuesday.

It is the fourth time for the two Asian powerhouses to meet in Asiad's final, with their last head-to-head final in Seoul in 1986 when China bagged the gold medal.

Due to a slow start and a string of spike errors, China opened the final 1-5. Japan took the chance to continue its ascendency from 8-2 to 12-5 with quick attacks and sound defense.

Though the Chinese women managed to catch up 11-16 with dreadful spikes of their ace hitters Yang Hao and Xu Yunli, the Japanese women, which have always been regarded mentally strong, stunted the Chinese bombardment with unyielding defense and kept leading from 17-12 to 19-13.

The Chinese women bounced back to run off four straight points for 17-19 before the Japanese took the set 25-22.

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The Chinese spikers came back to life and launched a brilliant attacking wave from the start of the second set with a 6-2 lead and extended the winning momentum to tie the scoreboard 1-1 by easily taking the second 25-10.

China took early leads 8-5 and 11-6 in the third set before Japan surged back 14-14 with astonishing performance of its wing hitters Araki Eeika and Takahashi Miyuki.

The two sides fought fiercely in the rest time and exchanged lead eight times to a 22-22 tie. Yet, the Chinese did not let the opener replayed and sealed the set 25-23 with an unanswered spike.

The Japanese still did not give up in the last set and they once caught an 8-8 tie. However, China, the World Cup and Olympic dual champions, showed their world-class caliber to seal the match 25-16.

Earlier, Chinese Taipei downed Thailand in straight sets in the bronze medal match to take its first Asian Games' medal.

South Korea, the silver medalist of 2002 Busan Asiad, beat Kazakhstan 25-20, 25-22 and 25-14 in a pride-saving match to finish fifth in the nine-team tournament, while Vietnam downed Mongolia in the 7th-8th playoff.