TOKYO (Xinhua) – With Tokyo 2020 heading to its final day, the battle for the top position of the medals table turned even more intense on Saturday.

China still leads the medals count with 38 golds, 31 silvers and 18 bronzes, but the USA closed the deficit by three as they moved onto 36 golds thanks to strong showing on the penultimate day of the Games. Japan sits third with 27 golds and 56 medals.

There were two more gold medals for China on Saturday, as the world champion pair of Xu Shixiao and Sun Mengya claimed the women’s canoe double 500m gold before Cao Yuan and Yang Jian made a 1-2 Chinese finish in the men’s 10m platform event.

Xu and Sun, who set Olympic best time on Friday, refreshed their own mark in one minute and 55.495 seconds for their maiden Olympic title. It’s also China’s first Olympic medal in women’s canoe sprint.

Cao became the first diver to win Olympic gold medals in three different events after his triumph in the men’s 10m platform.

“I tried not to think too much about the scores. Instead I tried stay calm. I just made sure that I didn’t make errors in each dive,” said Cao, who won the Olympic gold in men’s synchronized 10m platform in 2012 and 3m springboard in 2016.

With the win, China made it seven gold medals out of eight events in diving at Tokyo 2020.