Summary Qatar's women basketball team say they will forfeit a third Asian Games match (today) Friday.
INCHEON (AFP) - Qatar s women basketball team say they will forfeit a third Asian Games match on Friday in a deepening row over the wearing of Muslim headscarves.
Having already missed two games because they refuse to give in to an International Basketball Federation ban on headwear, Qatar say they will not change their stance for Friday s group game against Kazakhstan.
Qatar s players have called the ban on hijab scarves an "insult" to their religion and they are gathering growing support from sporting bodies and national Olympic committees for their cause, according to Asian sports officials.
A final swim clash between China s Sun Yang and South Korea s Park Tae-Hwan dominates the sporting action in Incheon.
China s Olympic champion Sun will be hot favourite to take gold in swimming s iron-man 1,500 metres freestyle.
For home hero Park, who has been suffering from nerves all week, the race is a final chance at redemption after a hugely disappointing Asian Games.
Olympic champion Ye Shiwen also looks odds-on to complete the women s medley double in the 200m as swimming superpower China look to finish the competition in style.
The final six swimming golds will be decided. There are also six more shooting golds where China, already on 79 golds overall, will hope to move closer to 100.
Friday is also the final day of weightlifting when the world s strongest man, Iran s giant Salimi Behdad, the superheavyweight (+105kg) Olympic champion, will take centre stage in the Moonlight Gardens Arena.
Standing 6ft 6in (1.98m) tall and weighing in at 365lb (166kg) the 24-year-old is expected to challenge his own snatch world record of 214kg and comfortably defend his title from the Guangzhou Asiad four years ago.
Other weighlifting medals up for grabs are in the women s +75kg and the men s 105kg.
Pakistan play Bangladesh in the women s cricket final, the sport the South Korean hosts of the Games did not want.
In football, North Korea take on Indonesia and Iraq, one of the best teams in the first round groups, play Tajikistan for a place in the quarters.
In the women s football, North Korea play China in a grudge-match quarter final.
The basketball men s quarter-finals, played out in two pools of four teams, begin at the Samsan World Gymnasium and the Hwaesong Gymnasium.
