China&rsquo;s pole vault star Li Ling upgraded her own Asian record by one centimetre as she grabbed the sole gold medal for the hosts on the third competition day at the Asian Championships in Wuhan on Saturday (6). The defending champion started at 4.20m but needed a second attempt to clear that height. After soaring past 4.40m to clinch the title, the 25-year-old cleared 4.55m before leaping 4.66m with her second try to beat her own Asian record of 4.65m set when winning at the 2013 National Games in Shenyang.&ldquo;After I set the record of 4.65m, I knew that, sooner or later, I will break it," said Li. "It was just a matter of time.&ldquo;If I am in good shape and everything goes well, I think I can further improve the Asian record in Beijing,&rdquo; added the surprise winner of the 2014 IAAF Continental Cup. &ldquo;The highest finish achieved by a Chinese female vaulter at the World Championships was fifth and I want to make history in August.&rdquo;Li&rsquo;s gold medal was the only one won for China on Saturday after the hosts earned 10 titles during the previous two days in Wuhan. By contrast, Bahrain took the lion&rsquo;s share on Saturday, adding three gold and one bronze to their medal tally.Double Asian Games champion Kemi Adekoya, who collected the women&rsquo;s 400m and 400m hurdles in the Korean city of Inchon last year, maintained her dominance on the continental stage.The 22-year-old powered to a world-leading PB of 54.31 to win over the barriers, improving her own national record of 54.59 and smashing the championship record of 55.63 set by China&rsquo;s Huang Xiaoxiao in 2005.&ldquo;I took this competition as part of my training to prepare for the World Championships. My goal is to have a podium finish in Beijing,&rdquo; said Adekoya, who chose to skip the 400m event in Wuhan.<h3>Koech now aims high in Beijing</h3>Her countryman John Koech is even more ambitious with his goal for Beijing. After winning the men&rsquo;s 3000m steeplechase in 8:27.03, the 19-year-old Koech said his aim is to win the gold in August.&ldquo;The race was very tough but I managed to win. My aim for the World Championships is to win the gold medal,&rdquo; said Koech, who improved his best to 8:14:75 at the Beijing leg of the IAAF World Challenge last month.Qatar&rsquo;s Hashim Salah Mohamed finished a distant second in 8:36.02.Bahrain&rsquo;s third gold came from 10,000m runner El Hassan Elabbassi, who won by a margin of almost a minute in 28:50.71. &ldquo;It was not easy for me because I competed in Eugene last week. And I feel really tired today,&rdquo; said the 31-year-old, who finished seventh in 27:25.02 at the IAAF Diamond League meeting.Indian athletes also managed to grab two golds on Saturday with Vikas Gowda retaining his discus title with 62.03m and Lalita Babar breaking her own national record to win the 3000m steeplechase in 9:34.13.Korean triple jumper Kim Deokhyeon upset local favourite and Asian Games champion Cao Shuo to win the gold medal with his third-round effort of 16.86m. Cao finished second with 16.77m.Japan&rsquo;s Konishi Yuta took the men&rsquo;s 400m hurdles title in 49.58 while Huang Shih-feng of Chinese Taipei won the men&rsquo;s javelin with his fifth-round throw of 79.74m.Qatari sprinter Femi Ogunode continued his solid form after breaking the Asian 100m record on Thursday, cutting 0.13 seconds from the 20-year-old championship record when winning his 200m semi-final in 20.28.Vincent Wu for the IAAF

China’s pole vault star Li Ling upgraded her own Asian record by one centimetre as she grabbed the sole gold medal for the hosts on the third competition day at the Asian Championships in Wuhan on Saturday (6). 

Pole vaulter Li Ling sets continental record at Asian Championships

There is a real uniqueness about Vikas Gowda.Firstly, at an imposing 205cm tall and weighing 140kg, he is a giant of a man. His accent is also surprising; the Indian athlete speaks with a gentle American drawl. Despite his origins, he also has very little interest in cricket, a sport which is a national obsession in India. Instead, Gowda’s passion is athletics and he is good at it. Very good.The discus thrower is the gold medallist from last year’s Asian Championships. He recently added the Commonwealth Games title with a throw of 63.64m in torrential rain in Glasgow. But there is one achievement that may yet make him the most unique of all Indian athletes.No Indian athlete has ever won an Olympic gold medal. In fact, the only Olympic track and field medals India can lay claim to is the two silvers by sprinter Norman Pritchard at the 1900 Paris Games. Pritchard was born to British parents in Colonial India, his medals in the 200m and 200m hurdles came a full 47 years before India gained full independence from Britain.For a country with a population of one billion, India has grossly underachieved in athletics. The country is also still awaiting its first male medallist at the IAAF World Championships (Anju Bobby George is the only Indian medallist ever, winning bronze in the women’s long jump in 2003).Gowda could yet be that man.Born in Myore, India, his family moved to Maryland, USA just before he turned six. His father Shive was a former athlete and 1988 Olympic coach. “He was a decathlete and one of the national coaches in India,” said Gowda.“So when we moved to the US, he started doing some local coaching at the high school (Frederick High School, Maryland). He started his own track club there. I would just go with him and hang out with him and run round the track when I was there.”Gowda developed his talents in the throws circle and represented India at the 2002 IAAF World Junior Championships in Kingston, Jamaica. “That was a big learning experience for me,” he said.“It was one of my first real major competitions ever. It was a tough competition even back then. There were a lot of good guys. Robert Harting and (Piotr) Malachowski was in the discus. (Usain) Bolt started there. There were a lot of big names in that competition.”Gowda continued to improve, winning silver at the 2005 Asian Championships. But so disappointed was he with his 22nd place finish at the Beijing Olympic Games, he almost quit the sport. “After Beijing, I didn’t know what I was going to do coaching-wise,” he said.“I was just kind of coaching myself for two years after college. I had a lot of injuries. I didn’t really know if I was going to keep going. Then I heard John Godina had started a training group in Phoenix, Arizona. After he retired, he started coaching athletes out there.“So I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll take one last shot at it?’ You can’t get a better situation than John Godina. Four-time world champion (indoors and outdoors), one of the best shot putters ever and an unbelievable discus thrower.“I took a big chance and moved out there and in just a couple of months I had got so much better. I knew I had made the right decision then. It’s tough when you are really young and trying to coach yourself.“Discus is not an easy event, that’s why a lot of the best guys are in their late 20s and early 30s; it takes a long time to develop. It took me a long time to re-learn the event and re-build everything.”Since the move, he has made big strides on the global stage. He was seventh in the men’s discus at the past two World Championships and eighth at the 2012 Olympics in London.Having now accumulated the Asian Championships and Commonwealth Games titles, he is hungry for more success this year at the IAAF Continental Cup in Marrakech, Morocco (13-14 September) and the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea (19 September-4 October).Looking ahead to Marrakech, he said: “I think I qualified last year after I won the Asian Championships. That will be another tough competition. I’ve never represented Asia before, so that will be interesting.”Beyond 2014, Gowda is optimistic he can challenge at the very highest level. “I think I am getting closer and closer every year,” he says. “I’m learning more and more about how to throw well. I’m growing as a thrower in general. Every year I’m improving, every year I’m getting more consistent. I just keep building and inching up every day.“Once I get to a good standard in practice, I can maintain a lot of good throws. It took 68 metres just to win a medal at the last Olympics. That was one of the toughest finals ever I think. I have to just keep training hard, keep training smart and I’ll get there.”As a qualified Maths tutor, Gowda monitors his progress more keenly than most. “I keep track of a lot of the numbers, keep track of the trends and the averages for each practice,” he says. “It’s definitely an upward swing.”If recent evidence is anything to go by, Gowda may yet have found the winning formula.Chris Broadbent for the IAAF

There is a real uniqueness about Vikas Gowda.

Gowda happy to stand out from the crowd 

It was a rare defeat for one of the sport’s highest profile stars, David Rudisha, that was the main talking point on another huge night at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow on Thursday (31).Jamaica moved their medal tally to sixteen as they claimed their second medal sweep, Nigeria added two more gold medals to their tally while South Africa and India won their first gold medals of this edition of the Games.Amos beats RudishaIn one of the most eagerly awaited races of the Games, Botswana’s Nijel Amos got the better of Olympic champion and world record-holder David Rudisha in Hampden Park, reversing their positions from the London 2012 Olympic Games. Rudisha towed the field through to the bell in 52 seconds and he was still leading coming into the home straight, alongside his compatriot Ferguson Rotich. Nevertheless, once he found room, Amos began to eat up the ground and he over-powered Rudisha in the last few metres to win in 1:45:18. It was the third time that Amos has beaten Rudisha this season, although the Kenyan has only recently returned to competitive fitness after a long lay-off with a knee injury which ruled out most of his 2013 season. “I’m lacking something,” admitted Rudisha, who finished second, 0.3 behind Amos. “I didn’t do all of last season. I didn’t start my preparation as usual, normally I started in November or December preparing for the season but, this time, I was out in rehabilitation in January and February and starting slowly in March. I did a little bit more of a crash programme. That is why I am paying (the price) a little bit now.” Asked whether he was now the main man over two laps of the track, Amos conceded: “I don’t think I am the man. I think maybe I will be the man if I break the world record five times. This gold medal means a lot today. I’d like next year for both of us to come back strong together, to break the world record.” Bronze went to South Africa’s Andre Olivier in 1:46.03. Another Jamaican clean sweepJamaica took a clean sweep in the men’s 200m. In a repeat of the top three in the Jamaican trials, Rasheed Dwyer got the better of world silver medallist Warren Weir, with their team-mate Jason Livermore taking bronze. In cool conditions, Dwyer clocked 20.14 with Weir never getting close enough to challenge and finishing 0.12 behind.“It’s a very good feeling," said Dwyer. "Words can’t describe what I feel right now. I know it’s going to be a great stepping stone for my career. It’s not the first Jamaican 1-2-3, but I’m very happy I’m in this 1-2-3."Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare claimed the sprint double, after winning the women’s 100m on Monday night, taking the 200m in highly impressive fashion as she won in 22.25, just 0.02 shy of her personal best set at the IAAF Diamond League in Eugene at the end of May. Despite the wet weather, English athletes Jodie Williams and Bianca Williams – no relation – recorded personal best times of 22.50 and 22.58 as they took silver and bronze respectively.Gowda is big cheeseWith gold medal favourite Shara Proctor of England pulling out injured in the first round and the schedule ruling out another medal bid for Olympic bronze medallist Blessing Okagbare, it opened the door for the latter’s Nigerian team-mate Ese Brume to win her first international title. On a soaking night, and after her disaster at the IAAF World Junior Championships in the USA last week when she failed to make the final, 18-year-old Brume produced the best leap of 6.56m in the third round. England’s Jazmin Sawyers won silver with 6.54m and Christabel Nettey of Canada won bronze with 6.49m, both with final-round jumps. It took Nigeria’s gold medal tally to three, their best since the 1994 Commonwealth Games. “I was not going to lose my gold medal," said Brume. "I was so determined out there. I will now go to Morocco for the African Championships, where the weather will be better. This is just the start for me.” Meanwhile, India were also celebrating after Vikas Gowda opened their medal account at these Games with a gold medal in the men’s discus, improving by one place on Delhi four years ago. The Olympic finalist produced the most consistent series and – crucially – the best throw of the competition with a third-round effort of 63.64m. Cyprius’s Apostolos Prellis took silver with 63.32m and Jamaica’as Jason Morgan grabbed bronze with a best of 62.34m. “This is something I have always wanted to do,” said Gowda. “Since I started competing, the Commonwealth Games has always been a huge event that I always marked on my calendar. As soon as my last meet was over last year, I pretty much started preparing for this day nine months ago.” Spencer ends gold droughtThere was a raucous atmosphere for the women’s 400m hurdles with Eilidh Child the major home hope for Scotland, but Jamaican favourite Kaliese Spencer was undaunted and executed her race plan perfectly, leading almost from the gun to win in 54.10. It was nearly a second clear of Child with another Jamaican, Janieve Russell, taking the bronze medal. “It has been eight years since I have won (a major international title),” said a relieved Spencer. “It was 2006 World Juniors since I won a gold. I just focused on my technique, focused on what I trained for. It wasn’t a perfect race, technique wise. But I came out with the win, so I am very happy about that.” In the men’s event, Cornel Fredericks took his first major title and South Africa’s first gold of the championships as he clocked 48.50. Trinidad and Tobago’s Jehue Gordon took the silver with 48.75 and Jeffrey Gibson acquired up the bronze in a Bahamian record of 48.78. Global champions progressKenya’s world 800m champion Eunice Sum headed the qualifiers for Friday’s women’s 800m final, winning her semi in 2:01.38. Another global champion, Olympic 100m hurdles champion Sally Pearson, was another to make smooth progress. The Australian was quickest from the heats in 12.69. Australia’s 2009 world champion Dani Samuel has returned to form this season and she was the top qualifier for the women’s discus final with 64.53m, the second-best throw ever at the Commonwealth Games. The Australian will start Friday’s final as an overwhelming favourite, with the next best finalist a full six metres adrift in qualifying. &nbsp;Chris Broadbent for the IAAF&nbsp;

It was a rare defeat for one of the sport’s highest profile stars, David Rudisha, that was the main talking point on another huge night at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow on Thursday (31).

Amos defeats Rudisha over 800m at the Commonwealth Games

China had two reasons to rejoice on the second day of the 20th Asian Championships in Pune, India, as they took both 100m titles on Thursday (4).Su Bingtian&rsquo;s victory in the men&rsquo;s 100m underlined their recent dominance in the event and Wei Yongli&rsquo;s success in the women&rsquo;s short sprint broke a barren spell dating back to 2005.Su successfully defended the gold medal he won in Kobe with a convincing performance, emerging ahead of Qatar&rsquo;s Samuel Francis in 10.17All eyes were on Su and Francis at the start but the Chinese sprinter capitalised on a quick start to dash the Qatari&rsquo;s hopes. Francis, the Asian record-holder at 9.99 and the winner in 2007, lost ground to Su and Oman&rsquo;s Barakat Al Harthi in the early stages of the race. Although the powerful Qatari quickly caught up with Al Harthi, Su proved a little too hot on the day.Running into a breeze of -0.3m/s, the 23-year-old Chinese sprinter pulled away strongly in the second half of the race to seal his victory as Francis finished second in 10.27 while Al Harthi, the bronze medallist at the 2010 Asian Games, finished third in 10.30. Su&rsquo;s win was China&rsquo;s third straight gold in this event.Wei, the silver medallist two years ago, simply dominated the women&rsquo;s 100m field, clocking 11.29 for the gold medal.She was a cut above the rest of field. Japan's Chisato Fukushima, winner of the sprint double at the 2010 Asian Games, had no chance against the thundering strides of the Chinese and had to settle for silver at 11.53. Golden GowdaIndian discus thrower Vikas Gowda had been knocking on the doors of success for quite a while now and his moment finally arrived on Friday as the rain stayed away and the conditions became almost perfect. Gowda had won two silver medals in the past, in 2005 and 2011 but the absence of Iran&rsquo;s Olympic silver medallist Ehsan Hadadi &ndash; a four-time Asian champion &ndash; meant he was the firm favourite here and the US-based thrower did not disappoint the home fans, throwing 64.90 in the fourth round to win by almost three metres.It was the perfect early birthday present for Gowda, who turns 30 on Friday but the Indian had no time to celebrate, rushing off to catch a flight to Paris for Saturday&rsquo;s Diamond League meeting in the French capital.&ldquo;Listening to the national anthem on the podium, all those years of hard work came rushing to my mind,&rdquo; said Gowda, who was eighth at the London 2012 Olympic Games.Kazakhstan&rsquo;s Dmitriy Karpov won his first Asian Championships gold medal with a composed performance in Decathlon. Just 28 points separated the Karpov from Japan&rsquo;s Akihiko Nakamura at the halfway point overnight but the 2004 Olympic Games bronze medallist pulled away on day two.Karpov tallied 8037 points, way below his best but still well ahead of Nakamura&rsquo;s 7620 and it was also a championship record.Al-Masrahi retains 400m titleSaudi Arabia&rsquo;s Youssef Al-Masrahi retained the gold medal in the men&rsquo;s 400m to underline his status as the best in Asia over one lap of the track. The 26-year-old took control over the race early and had the strength to sustain his pace in the home straight, stopping the clock at 45.08.Bahrain&rsquo;s young 18-year-old prospect, Ali Khamis, fought hard for the silver in a personal best of 45.65 and soon afterwards his excited father Khamis Abbas ran on to the track to hug his son, shedding tears of joy.China picked up their third gold of the day through Zhao Yanmin in the women&rsquo;s 400m. Yanmin dashed the hopes of India&rsquo;s M R Poovamma with a powerful surge to deliver her season&rsquo;s best performance of 52.49 that put her on top of the Asian lists as well. Poovamma, who had swept the Asian Grand Prix series in May, was expecting gold but misjudged her pace badly to end in second spot, timing 53.37. It was a Bahrain one-two in the men&rsquo;s 10,000m, with Alemu Bekele taking the gold in 28:47.26, followed by Bilisuma Shugi in 28:58.67.&nbsp; A thin field of just seven runners heard the starter&rsquo;s gun and it was the three Indians &ndash; Kheta Ram, Ratiram Saini and G Lakshmanan &ndash; who set the early pace. Bilisuma and Bekele quietly followed the Indian trio before shifting gears with eight laps to go. Bekele then injected another dose of pace with a little over 1600 metres left to pull away from Bilisuma and emerge a comfortable victor. Saini fetched another bronze for India in 29:35.42.Uzbekistan&rsquo;s Nadia Dusanova won the women&rsquo;s high jump when she was the only competitor to go clear at 1.90m. Dusanova&rsquo;s compatriot and former world junior champion Svetlana Radzivil edged Kazakhstan&rsquo;s Marina Aitova on countback for the silver medal after both had cleared 1.88m.

China had two reasons to rejoice on the second day of the Asian Championships in Pune, India, as they took both 100m titles on Thursday (4).

Pole vaulter Li Ling sets continental record at Asian Championships

Gowda happy to stand out from the crowd

Amos defeats Rudisha over 800m at the Commonwealth Games

Chinese sprinters take 100m titles at Asian Championships