China won four of the eight gold medals on offer on the opening day of the Asian Championships in the Chinese city of Wuhan on Wednesday (3).The hosts maintained their dominance in the 110m hurdles as Xie Wenjun claimed the title with 13.56. After the race, Xie admitted that he was still bothered by jet-lag after clocking 13.39 at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Eugene just four days prior.&ldquo;The morning session was OK. I clocked 13.55 and thought I could at least run sub-13.40 in the final,&rdquo; said the 2014 Asian Games champion. &ldquo;But in the afternoon I started to feel sleepy and powerless.&rdquo;Defending champion Jiang Fan of China was still trying to rebound from an ankle injury and only finished fifth in 13.85.China made it a sprint hurdles double as Asian Games champion Wu Shuijiao won the women&rsquo;s event in 13.12, but she was not satisfied with her performance.&ldquo;I still need to work on the home sprint,&rdquo; said Wu, who clocked a PB of 12.72 when winning gold in Inchon last year. &ldquo;Hopefully I can improve my PB at the coming World Championships in August.&rdquo;In spite of the absence of seasoned throwers Zhang Wenxiu and Wang Zheng, China still took the gold medal in women&rsquo;s hammer throw thanks to Liu Tingting&rsquo;s second-round effort of 68.24m.China&rsquo;s fourth gold medal came from Lu Minjia, who cruised to the top of the podium in the women&rsquo;s long jump, setting a season&rsquo;s best of 6.52m.<h3>Al-Garni and Desalegn take 1500m titles</h3>Competing in his first race of the year, Qatar&rsquo;s double Asian Games champion Mohamad Al-Garni clocked 3:41.42 to win the men&rsquo;s 1500m by more than a second.The 2010 world junior bronze medallist attributed his victory to a successful strategy.&ldquo;The plan was just to follow the guys and wait for the last 300 meters,&rdquo; said Al-Garni, who will compete in the 5000m on Thursday. &ldquo;I was confident with my last sprint.&rdquo;The women&rsquo;s 1500m witnessed a thrilling home-stretch battle with China&rsquo;s Zhao Jing and reigning champion Betlhem Desalegn of UAE crossing the finish line almost neck-and-neck. Desalegn snatched the gold with a 0.01 margin in 4:29:39.Inderjeet Singh of India won the men&rsquo;s shot put with his fourth-round attempt of 20.41m to break the championship record. Any one of his four measured throws, all of which were 20 metres or better, would have been enough to win.Uzbekistan&rsquo;s Svetlana Radzivil upgraded her silver medal from the previous edition of the championships and won gold with a season&rsquo;s best of 1.91m in the women&rsquo;s high jump.<h3>Ogunode impresses in 100m rounds</h3>The hosts&rsquo; dominant performances were somewhat upstaged by Qatari sprinter Femi Ogunode, who stormed to a championship record of 9.97 in the men&rsquo;s 100m semi-final.A total of 34 sprinters enrolled in the men&rsquo;s 100m and the 24-year-old Asian record holder clocked 10.12 to stay on top of the preliminary round in the morning session. His solid form continued in the afternoon as he dashed to a season&rsquo;s best of 9.97 (1.1m/s), beating the championship record of 9.99 set by compatriot Samuel Francis in 2007.His time was just 0.04 shy of the 9.93 Asian record he set when winning the Asian Games title last year, and Ogunode expressed his ambition to break that mark in Thursday&rsquo;s final.Su Bingtian, the defending champion who improved the Chinese record to 9.99 at the recent IAAF Diamond League meeting in Eugene on Saturday, chose to skip the individual event in Wuhan but will contest the 4x100m later in the championships.Vincent Wu for the IAAF

China won four of the eight gold medals on offer on the opening day of the Asian Championships in the Chinese city of Wuhan on Wednesday (3).

Four golds for hosts China on first day of Asian Championships

Four world leads highlighted the IAAF World Challenge meeting in Beijing, and there was an attempt on Zhu Jianhua&rsquo;s iconic national record in the high jump by Zhang Guowei on Wednesday night (20).David Oliver and Wenda Nel set world-leading times in the hurdles, as a crowd of more than 40,000 watched in the stadium which will host the 2015 IAAF World Championships.The day before the Beijing meeting, Oliver was outlining his competitive philosophy to a group of media representatives. In a nutshell, it boiled down to always putting everything on the line every time you compete because you never know what is coming next.Several athletes who competed on Sunday at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Shanghai showed signs of weariness as the show moved north to Beijing, but not Oliver.He gave the same 100 per cent effort he had given in winning four days earlier. As he crossed the line 0.22 seconds ahead of Orlando Ortega on this occasion &ndash; it was just 0.02 on Sunday &ndash; the time initially was displayed as identical as in Shanghai, 13.17.But it was soon adjusted to 13.15 and the man who won at the World Championships in Moscow two years ago now stands at the top of the pile again. Nel did not run in Shanghai, where Kaliese Spencer won in 54.71, and last weekend Nel also lost her world lead to the USA&rsquo;s Shamier Little, but the South African put things right in the Bird&rsquo;s Nest.Running in the middle of the field, she was never behind. Nel rose to the eighth hurdle fractionally ahead of Olympic silver medallist Lashinda Demus and her US compatriot Tiffany Williams and then powered away from them along the final straight to win in a personal best of 54.37 from Williams (55.22) and Demus (55.86).Throws dash Chinese hopes, but Zhang salves prideThere were bright local prospects in the women&rsquo;s throws, but it didn&rsquo;t work out like that.It may have been expecting a little too much for either Wang Zheng or Zhang Wenxiu to beat Polish hammer world record-holder Anita Wlodarczyk but either, or both, might have got close.Instead, Wlodarczyk stamped her authority on the competition, part of the 2015 IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge, very early. Her 74.14m opener would have won the day, but she improved to a world-leading 77.73m in the second round and her last three throws went out to 76.23m, 75.59m and 75.61m.It was easily Wlodarczyk's best ever season opener and is the best hammer performance ever achieved on Asian soil.Zheng took second with 73.99m and Slovakia&rsquo;s Martina Hrasnova was third with 73.80m.The expectation in the shot put, however, was that Gong Lijiao would repeat her Shanghai win over Christina Schwanitz, but the German opened with 19.86m, which took the lead over Gong&rsquo;s 19.50m earlier in the round.Gong never improved, whereas Schwanitz went to 20.38m in the fourth round and a world-leading personal best of 20.77m in the fifth.In this form, the German thrower will be a threat even to Valerie Adams when the 2014 World Athlete of the Year returns to competition.It was the best outdoor throw in the world since Adams won the 2013 world title and the best mark by a German since 1997.If hopes were dashed by these two results, Chinese fans were smiling again in the men&rsquo;s high jump.Not only did Zhang win with 2.34m, but two Chinese jumpers fought out the contest at that height. Wang Yu got over 2.28m at his third try and 2.31m at his second to force Zhang into a fight for the win.Zhang, who was leading on countback in any case, cleared 2.34m on the third attempt and then audaciously went straight to 2.40m, one centimetre above the national (and former world) record set by Zhu Jianhua way back in 1984. Zhang didn&rsquo;t get it this time, but one attempt was a good one.There was another Chinese victory in the women&rsquo;s 100m hurdles, Wu Shuijiao running a clean race to hold a narrow lead over Tenaya Jones all the way to the line, winning in 12.85 to the US hurdler&rsquo;s 12.89.Another event with a strong Chinese presence was the men&rsquo;s long jump, but victory not only eluded the home athletes, but also world champion Aleksandr Menkov and world leader Jeff Henderson.Instead, Henderson&rsquo;s training partner Mike Hartfield improved his best from 8.15m to 8.27m for an upset win. Henderson was second with 8.23m, Menkov jumped 8.20m and Li Jinzhe was fourth with 8.13mMichelle-Lee Ahye took the women&rsquo;s 100m in 11.05 and the USA&rsquo;s world indoor 60m silver medallist Marvin Bracy ran a personal best 9.95 to take the men&rsquo;s event. Bracy had not broken 10 seconds before, his previous best being 10.08.Anna Chicherova, who is returning from an ankle injury last year, won the women&rsquo;s high jump, the Olympic champion clearing 1.94m on her last attempt.Kenya&rsquo;s Jonathan Ndiku, the Commonwealth Games champion last year, won the 3000m steeplechase in 8:11.64 while world youth and world junior champion Alfred Kipketer showed he might be a threat to his older rivals this year with a win in the 800m in 1:45.45.Ukraine&rsquo;s in-form Anna Mishchenko showed an impressive burst of speed over the final 200 metres to win the women&rsquo;s 1500m in 4:02.89.Len Johnson for the IAAF

Four world leads highlighted the IAAF World Challenge meeting in Beijing, and there was an attempt on Zhu Jianhua’s iconic national record in the high jump by Zhang Guowei on Wednesday night (20).

Four world leads in Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium

The men’s and women’s 800m finals at the Asian Games in the South Korean city of Inchon on Wednesday (1) could not have been more different.In a fast women’s two-lap final, records were broken. In a more tactical men’s race, rules were broken.Few were surprised to see Indian record-holder Tintu Luka hit the front on the first lap of the women’s final. She hit the bell in 57.06 and continued to lead at 600m (1:27.43), but defending champion Margarita Mukasheva was within striking distance.The Kazakhstani record-holder and World University Games champion made up the deficit and passed Luka in the closing stages, winning in a Games record of 1:59.02. Luka managed to hold on to second place in 1:59.19, both athletes running the second-fastest times of their careers.In third, China’s Zhao Jing improved her PB by almost two seconds with 1:59.48. All three medal winners dipped below the previous Games record, while Mukasheva became the first woman to successfully defend an Asian Games 800m title since Israel’s Hannah Shezifi in 1970.But while the women’s race was clear-cut, the same cannot be said of the men’s final which was held 10 minutes later.The field went through the first lap in 53.01, led by Musaeb Abdulrahman Balla. The Qatari held his lead for another 200 metres or so before being caught by Saudi Arabia’s Abdulaziz Ladan Mohammed, who crossed the line in 1:46.28, followed by Balla and Bahrain’s Abraham Rotich.But moments later it was announced that all three podium finishers had been disqualified; Mohammed for pushing another athlete on the first lap, and Balla and Rotich for lane violations.It meant that Iraq’s Adnan Taess Akkar, who crossed the line more than a second after Mohammed in 1:47.48, was promoted from fourth to first, securing his country’s first athletics gold medal at the Asian Games since 1982.Games records fallThe women’s 800m was just one of four Games records that fell on Wednesday and the day began – and ended – with Games records being smashed.In the first event of the day, the men’s 50km race walk, Japan’s Takayuki Tanii took almost seven minutes off the Games record and narrowly missed breaking the Japanese record by seven seconds.He led from the outset, building up a six-second lead at 5km, growing to 10 seconds at 10km. But by time he reached the 20km marker (1:28:30), Tanii had been joined at the front by compatriot Yuki Yamazaki and South Korea’s Chilsung Park.Tanii and Yamazaki continued to share the lead for another 15 kilometres as Park began to struggle, falling behind by almost three minutes. Yamazaki then hit a difficult patch and was eventually disqualified less than 5km before the finish, although by that point he had dropped out of medal contention.As Yamazaki, the Japanese record-holder for the distance, sat and watched Tanii forge ahead to gold in a Games record of 3:40:19, he could at least take some consolation in the fact that his national record remained intact.Despite slowing significantly in the second half, Park held on to take silver in 3:49:15 with China’s Wang Zhendong finishing third in 3:50:52.The last field event title to be decided on Wednesday was the women’s javelin, which saw its fair share of excitement.Annu Rani opened proceedings with a national record of 59.53m, which was the leading mark for the first half of the contest. For a while it looked as though she would become India’s first gold medallist in the women’s javelin at the Asian Games.But then the Chinese duo of Zhang Li and Li Lingwei came to life. Zhang threw a Games record of 62.42m in round four, then Li moved into second place with a throw of 61.07m. In the space of two throws, Rani had been relegated to bronze.The contest wasn’t over though and both Chinese throwers improved again in the next round, Zhang throwing 63.98m and Li 61.43m. Zhang then rounded out her series with a third consecutive improvement on the Games record, this time with an almighty 65.47m, adding 73 centimetres to her PB set two years ago.It was China’s second gold medal of the day, following Wu Shijiao’s domination of the women’s 100m hurdles. She obliterated her PB to win in 12.72, moving to second on the Chinese all-time list, just 0.08 behind Zhang Yu’s national record set in 1993. Team-mate Sun Yawei took silver in 13.05, improving on her bronze medal from four years ago.Double delight for Adekoya and OgunodeHaving already won the one-lap sprint, Bahrain’s Kemi Adekoya added the 400m hurdles title to her collection, winning comfortably in 55.77. Just like she did in the 400m flat, she had broken the Games record in the preliminary round, so in the final she could focus on simply winning.In second, Japan’s Satomi Kubokura improved on her bronze medal from the 2010 Asian Games, taking the silver in 56.21, 0.38 ahead of China’s Xiao Xia.There was an identical Bahrain-Japan-China finish in the men’s event as world junior silver medallist Ali Khamis Khamis won in 49.71 from Japan’s Takayuki Kishimoto (49.81) and China’s Cheng Wen (50.29).Qatar’s Femi Ogunode, who earlier in the competition had won the men’s 100m, was an easy winner of the 200m. Competing in his sixth race of the championships, the 20-second barrier eluded him once more, but his winning time of 20.14 (0.3m/s) was the second-fastest time of his career and broke the Games record. Saudi Arabia’s Fahhad Mohammed Al Subaie was a distant second in 20.74.More gold for KazakhstanMukasheva, the 800m champion, wasn’t the only Kazakhstani athlete to successfully defend her Asian Games title on Wednesday.Olympic champion Olga Rypakova, having returned from childbirth in the latter stages of this summer, won the triple jump with 14.32m. It was her third successive gold medal at the Asian Games, having won the triple jump in 2010 and the heptathlon in 2006.More gold came Kazakhstan’s way in the women’s 200m, which was won by Olga Safronova in 23.02, a quarter of a second ahead of China’s Wei Yongli.Ushiro ends Karpov’s reign as decathlon championKazakhstan’s Asian record-holder Dmitriy Karpov was bidding to win a third successive decathlon title in Inchon, but the 2004 Olympic bronze medallist eventually finished outside the medals.The overnight lead was held by Uzbekistan’s Leonid Andreev, the 2002 world junior decathlon champion who last year returned to combined events, having spent the previous decade focusing on just the pole vault.He began the second day with a 92-point lead over Japan’s Akihiko Nakamura with Keisuke Ushiro a further 50 points behind and Karpov in fourth. Andreev’s lead was reduced to just 16 points after the 110m hurdles, which was won by Nakamura in 14.33 to Andreev’s 14.95.While Nakamura then struggled in the discus, throwing just 34.75m, his compatriot Ushiro excelled, throwing 48.98m, five metres farther than Andreev, but the Uzbek athlete maintained his pole position.It was no surprise that having focused on the event for so long – even winning a silver medal in the event at the last Asian Games – Andreev produced the best pole vault mark of the day with 5.00m, bumping his leading margin back up to 153 points.But Ushiro, a strong thrower, hit back in the javelin with 68.09m, eight metres farther than Andreev’s mark, and the gap between the pair was now down to 32 points.At this stage, with one event remaining, Andreev had already surpassed his decathlon PB by 80 points with a total of 7463. But first he had the small matter of getting around the 1500m – by far his weakest event – and trying to hold on to his lead.Inevitably, Ushiro beat Andreev in the 1500m by 43 seconds to snatch the victory in the final event with a score of 8088. It means that Ushiro ended his season undefeated in the decathlon, notching up four victories and having twice broken the Japanese record earlier in the season.Andreev held on for second with a PB of 7879 with Nakamura taking bronze in 7828. After taking silver in 2002, then gold in 2006 and 2010, Karpov failed to make the podium this time, scoring 7749 in fourth.Jon Mulkeen for the IAAF

The men’s and women’s 800m finals at the Asian Games in Inchon on Wednesday (1), the fifth day of athletics, could not have been more different.

Records and rules broken in 800m finals at Asian Games

Four Games records were broken – three of them by Chinese athletes – on Wednesday (9), the final day of athletics at the East Asian Games in Tianjin.It brought to a close three days of action that had been dominated by Chinese athletes as the host nation won more than two thirds of the gold medals on offer. The Chinese women were particularly impressive, taking all but two of the titles.Exactly one month after winning the National Games title, Zhao Qinggang added to his medal tally by winning the Javelin. His winning throw of 82.97m was the second-best mark of his career after the 83.14m he threw to win the National Games in September.It also broke the Games record set by compatriot Li Rongxiang 12 years ago and maintained China’s winning streak in this event, dating back to the inaugural edition in 1993.Chinese Taipei’s Huang Shih-Feng, the 2009 World youth champion, provided a stiff challenge and smashed his own national record with 82.11m, his first throw in excess of 80 metres.Zhao wasn’t the only National Games winner to triumph in Tianjin. China’s Wu Shujiao improved on the PB she set when winning the National Games 100m Hurdles title last month, taking gold with a Games record of 12.93, the fastest time in the world this year by an Asian athlete. She finished more than a quarter of a second ahead of Japan’s Eriko Soma, who set a PB of 13.22.Su successfully defends 100m title, Wei secures sprint doubleWorld and Olympic semi-finalist Su Bingtian successfully defended his 100m title, but it did not come easily.World University Games silver medallist Ryota Yamagata of Japan got off to a good start before Su reeled him in with millimetres to spare. The pair were both given the same time of 10.31 but Su was awarded the victory.“I tried my best to run and gradually narrow the gap between us. Finally I won,” said Su, who set a PB of 10.06 earlier this year.“This result is of course not my best, but after the National Games last month I didn’t have time for training. I felt that I could not gather all my energy this morning, but my coach said that my form looked better this afternoon before the final.”Yamagata avenged the defeat the following day as he formed part of a winning Japanese quartet in the 4x100m, smashing the Games record in the process. He ran the first leg before handing over to 200m silver medallist Shota Iizuka, who then passed on to 200m champion Asuka Cambridge. 100m bronze medallist Kazuma Oseto brought the team home in 38.44, just 0.05 slower than their time from the World Championships final where they finished sixth.China’s Wei Yongli took double gold in the women’s sprints, winning both the 100m (11.57) and 200m (23.71) with comfortable margins.Jiang maintains Chinese tradition in sprint hurdlesEver since the inaugural East Asian Games in 1993, China has won every gold medal on offer in the 110m Hurdles. Asian champion Jiang Fan ensured that record remained intact, although it came under serious threat from Korea’s Kim Byung-Jun.Jiang won in 13.58, just 0.03 ahead of his Korean rival. China’s Ji Wei was also in contention for much of the race, but hit the last hurdle and had to settle for third place in 13.70.“It was tough, but I told myself that I must win at home,” said Jiang. “China boasts the advantage in the men’s 110m Hurdles in Asia and we should never lose it.”Liu Xiang, winner of the past three East Asian Games titles, was not able to defend his title. The former World record-holder has only just recently returned from an 11-month rehab programme in the US.Aside from the men’s Javelin and 110m Hurdles, other events where China won a sixth successive gold medal were the women’s 800m, women’s 1500m, women’s 4x400m and the women’s Shot. The latter – won by Liu Xiangrong with 18.40m – was the only field event for women.Elsewhere, the fourth Games record of the competition was set by Li Zhenzhu in the women’s 3000m Steeplechase with 9:53.17. World finalist Seito Yamamoto won the men's Pole Vault with 5.50m, and Cheng Wen clocked a season's best of 49.66 to win the men's 400m Hurdles. Jon Mulkeen for the IAAF

Chinese athletes dominate on home soil at East Asian Games

Four Games records were broken – three of them by Chinese athletes – on Wednesday (9), the final day of athletics at the East Asian Games in Tianjin.