China's Xue Fei wins the women's 5000m at the Asian Games (© Getty Images)
The 2009 indoor season started in Nanjing in Jiangsu province of China with a lot of promising former junior athletes born 1989 competing for the first time as seniors. On the women’s side one of the best results was achieved by Xue Fei, still 19-years-old, who won the 1500m with a 4:15.21 personal best (4:08.87 outdoors 2008). Xue, who won the 5000m World Junior title in 2006 and was 13th at the 5000m Olympic Final in Beijing, is the best middle distance runner in China.
In the women’s Shot Put Meng Qianqian who just turned 18, set a personal best 17.20m for a narrow win before Zhang Qiang’s 17.19m result, also a PB. Meng, who also bettered her 17.07m outdoor PB from 2008 will be looking to be the Chinese number one Shot Put junior now that Gong Lijiao is a senior. Gong’s 19.46m at the Olympic qualification was the best result by a junior since June 2004 so Meng has a lot to do before she reaches that level.
Li Yanmei, still a junior, opened with an indoor best of 13.76m in the Triple Jump and 24-year-old Chen Yaling also marked her best indoor result winning the Long Jump with 6.57m. She has jumped 6.62m outdoors in 2006. The best Chinese high jumper Zheng Xingjuan won her first senior competition with a 1.88m clearance and Sun Yawei was fastest over the 60m Hurdles with a 8.34s result.
Tang Xiaoyin won the 400m in 53.99s and Lai Weijie took the 200m title in 24.16s after setting a 24.02s personal best in the heats. Jiang Lan, also competing for the first time as a senior, took the 60m title as expected in 7.41s.
In the men’s events Lu Bin was fastest in the 60m winning in 6.69s. Lu ran faster 6.68s winning his heat with 19-year-old Su Bingtian setting a personal best 6.67s in the heats. The best Chinese 400m runner Liu Xiaosheng started with a 48.03s win.
In the 60m hurdles 20-year-old Yin Jing snapped a nice 0.17 seconds off his personal best winning in 7.64s. Chinese number two star after Liu Xiang, Shi Dongpeng won another final heat in 7.71s with 19-year-old Jiang Fan bettering his PB by 0.19s to finish second in 7.76s.
Dong Bin won the Triple Jump with a 16.51m personal best and Zhang Jun was best in the Shot Put with 18.54m PB. Xu Zhongnan moved to senior level placing second with a 18.30s result and Ding Yongheng, only 17 years old, was third getting over 18m limit for the first with the 7.26kg shot: 18.13m. Ding reached 20.40m with the 5kg implement last season.
The indoor season in China continues next week, 18-19 February, in Shanghai.
Mirko Jalava for the IAAF
