Not even a hair’s breadth could separate them as they crossed the finish line in exactly the same time at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Park Stadium.

Officials went through several replays before it was evenutally confirmed that Takayama and Al-Youha had both clocked 13.41sec to share first place.

"This is very rare in our line of work," said Al-Youha who admitted that his "blood ran cold" before the results were officially announced on the big screen.

"It’s a great pleasure for me to win the gold at the Asian Games."

Takayama also expressed his delight at the double award, adding: "Getting a gold medal makes me very happy... to get two gold medals with another athlete makes me twice as happy."

It was a day of close finishes with fine margins determining the winners of many events across the Games.

There was just 0.03 between Japan's Koki Ueyama and Saudi Arabia's Abdullar Abkar Mohammed when they finished the men’s 200m final.

Mohammed looked set for victory only to tighten up in the closing metres, allowing Ueyama to seize his moment to triumph in 20.60.

The women’s 200m final also went down to the wire, with Singapore’s Veronica Shanti Pereira edging out China's Li Yuting to win in 23.03.

Bahrain enjoyed a great day on the track as world champion Winfred Yavi retained the women's 3,000m steeplechase title in an Asian Games record time of 9min 18.28sec before the Middle East nation captured the mixed 4x400m relay crown.

Salwa Eid Naser, who returned from a two-year doping ban earlier this year, anchored the Bahraini team to victory in 3:14.02.

Hossein Rasouli got the better of Ehsan Hadadi in an Iranian one-two in the men's discus final.

Hadadi had led with a season's best throw of 61.82m with his second attempt before Rasouli threw 62.04m for victory.

There were also two more golds for China in the field events.

Xiong Shiqi registered a personal best leap of 6.73m to claim the women’s long jump title before Li Ling won women's pole vault gold for the third successive Asian Games after clearing 4.63m.

They were among 14 golds won by the hosts who continued to extend their lead at the top of the standings with 147 titles overall.

As well as athletics, China also achieved success in diving, canoe sprint, equestrian, esports, kurash, table tennis and trampoline gymnastics.

Medals were won in canoe sprint for the first time today, with China claiming four of the six available.

Victories came for Zhang Dong in the men’s K1 1,000m, Bu Tingkai and Wang Congkang in the men’s K2 500m events as well as Xu Shixiao and Sun Mengya in the women’s C2 500m and Yin Mengdie and Wang Nan in the women’s K2 500m finals.

Sergey Yemelyanov and Timur Khaidarov sealed men’s C2 500m gold for Kazakhstan, while Lai Kuan-chieh of Chinese Taipei clinched the men’s C1 1,000m title.

China’s diving dominance continued with two further golds thanks to Li Yajie and Wang Zongyuan, who secured the respective women’s and men’s 1m springboard crowns.

There was also delight for China in equestrian as Hua Tian claimed individual eventing gold after incurring just 27 penalties on board Poseidons Admiral.

Tian teamed up with Liang Ruiji, Bao Yingfeng and Sun Huadong to win team eventing gold after picking up 86.80 penalties.

Zhu Xueying, the reigning Olympic trampoline champion, overcame compatriot Hu Yicheng in the women’s final courtesy of a score of 56.720 points, including 14.4 for difficulty, 16.80 for execution, 9.6 for horizontal displacement and 15.92 for flight time.

Another all-Chinese battle turned out to be an all-time classic between two heavyweights in table tennis.

Wang Chuqin prevailed 10-12, 12-10, 13-11, 7-11, 11-4, 7-11, 11-8 against Fan Zhendong in an 87-minute men’s singles gold-medal match as he gained revenge after losing to the same opponent in the final of the World Championships earlier this year.

South Koreans Jeon Ji-hee and Shin Yu-bin cruised to an 11-6, 11-4, 10-12, 12-10, 11-3 victory over North Koreans Cha Su-yong and Pak Su-gyong in the women’s doubles final.

China also claimed gold in kurash when Liu Yi overcame Iran’s Zahra Bagheri in the women’s under-87 kilogram final.

Iran picked up the other kurash title as Sadegh Azarang saw off South Korea’s Kim Ming-yu to capture men’s under-90kg gold.

China’s final gold of the day came in esports when Wang Chunyu, Lu Yao, Yang Shenyi, and Zhao Zixing combined to beat Mongolia 2-1 in the DOTA2 decider.

Japan completed a hat-trick of triathlon titles with success in the mixed relay event as Kenji Nener, Yuko Takahashi, Takumi Hojo and Yuka Sato finished in a combined winning time of 1:26.21.

Chinese Taipei enjoyed a roller skating double with victories in both the women’s and men’s speed skating 3,000m relay race finals.