Japan's Mitsushige Arita downed Australia's Adam Wright 3-1 in the men's taekwondo 80-kg final Monday to clinch the gold medal for the hosts on the third day of competition at the East Asian Games.

Meanwhile, Olympic bronze medalist Yoriko Okamoto breezed past Mongolia's Tuvshinjargal and Australia's Rosslyn Faulkner en route to the women's 67-kg final.

However, her gold medal hopes ended as South Korea's Lee In Jong kicked and punched her way to the top prize.

Japan's Yukiko Yoneda also had to settle for silver after being outmaneuvered, outfought and outclassed by Taiwan's Yang Wen-chen who took the gold medal with an emphatic 8-0 victory.

In the men's over 80-kg class, Hiroshi Kanai missed his chance to grab a golden present three days before his 28th birthday and had to settle for bronze after going down 8-4 to Adilkhan Sagindykov of Kazakstan in the semifinals.

Japan's Kosuke Kitajima and Yuko Nakanishi got off to a flying start as the host nation's swimmers took the lion's share of medals on the first day of action in the pool.

Kitajima set a new games record in the men's 100-meter breaststroke by clocking 1 minute, 2.00 seconds to grab Japan's first gold medal at Osaka Pool, coming from behind to beat Australia's Jim Piper in a performance he described as "not bad."

Olympian Nakanishi, meanwhile, led all the way in the women's 400-meter individual medley before touching the wall ahead of Japanese compatriot Ayane Sato in a personal best time of 4:48.43.

While many of the Japanese swimmers, who have all booked their place in the World Championships in July, view the games as a chance to "tune up for Fukuoka," there were also solid performances from Sumika Minamoto and Tomoko Nagai.

Minamoto, who last fall became the first-ever Japanese to qualify for an Olympic 100-meter freestyle final in Sydney, took silver in the same event here in 56.28 with Nagai in third in56.68.

In Monday's final race, the Japanese women's team placed second in the 4x200-meter relay in 8:04.96 ahead of South Korea with China grabbing its third swimming gold medal of the day.