Youngsters shine in
Chinese National Games
Mirko Jalava for the IAAF
21 November 2001 - Two young discus
throwers, 17-year-old Nu Ermaimaiti and
18-year-old Wu Tao were very close to
upsetting Asian Record holder Li Shaojie
in the fourth day of the Chinese
National Games.
Li started quite well throwing 60.11m with his second try with Nu getting 59.75m also with second, only 0.05m from his personal best. Wu, the Asian Junior Champion 2001, was struggling under 55m with his first two throws despite being the World Junior Leader this year with 60.64m. Nu Ermaimaiti gave Li the first upset in the third round bettering his pb with 1.06m to 60.86m, also breaking the World Youth Best for 17-year-olds (60.10) set by Werner Reiterer (AUS) in 1985. Wu Tao also reached his own level in the same round moving to third with 59.71m.
It was Wu who moved to the lead in round four with his personal best and a World Junior Leader of 61.21m only to see 25-year-old Li better his earlier seasonal best with 61.76m in the next round. In the last round Li and Nu were the last two throwers with Li first. He was able to produce another season’s best of 62.84m and Nu answered with a huge improvement of 1.5m to his third round throw. However, 62.36m was only enough for second place, but it broke Li Shaojie’s Asian Junior Record 61.34m, set in 1993, by 1.02m and was another World Youth Best and of course a World Junior Leader for 2001.
Women’s Shot put was the only other final of the day. The Chinese level has gone down with the rest of the world, but depth is still the best in the world. This time 17.40m was needed for today’s final and throwers were even in better form in the final as 17.60m was the result for 12th. Early leader in the competition was Song Feina, who putted her personal best 18.73m with her first throw. Cheng Xiaoyan, best putter of the country for the last few years, took the lead in round three with same result 18.73m, but having a better second best mark as Song had fouled her other two throws.
A shock to more experienced throwers came on round four. 20-year-old Li Meiju, 2nd in the World Junior Championships last year, having already putted a pb of 18.51m in first round, blasted the shot to 18.92m which was surprisingly enough to win today.
In the Decathlon, it was a one-man show as expected. 18-year-old Liaoning-athlete Qi Haifeng, who became the first Chinese to exceed 8000 points in the World University Games in August, is only 1 point behind his first day totals in the NR series which scored a total of 8019 points, also an Asian Junior Record. Qi made two personal bests during the first day of competition, 11.13 for 100m and 7.38m for Long jump.
The women’s 200m heats did not produce any surprises as the first two in 100m/200m in National Games 1997, Li Xuemei and Liu Xiaomei, both from Sichuan, easily won their heats. They also were the first two earlier in the 100m in these 9th National Games. The 5000m heats were very different with first heat run at a pedestrian pace, won by Dai Yanyan (Ma’s Army) in 15:55.45. Second heat of course knew what to do after this and Ma’s Army’s brightest star these days, Dong Yanmei, lead the group of 7 women within 0.33 seconds to the final winning in 15:27.66. 3rd in the heat 2 was 15-year-old Guo Lingling, bettering her earlier pb by 40 seconds! Guo was already 9th in the 1500m with 4:13.09.
Women’s 400m hurdles produced another World Junior Leader for 2001 as 16-year-old Huang Xiaoxiao won the first heat hurdling to 55.61, also moving her to 7th in the World Junior All-time list. Huang was a star at a very young age when she recorded the world junior age-best for 13-year-olds in 400m (53.28) in 1998. However, she was only able to top that result this year with 52.71 and also chose 400m hurdles as her main event. She will only run her fourth final 400m hurdles race tomorrow (56.53 Jinan May 13, 56.28 Tianjin May 19, 57.70 Chengdu July 1).
RESULTS
(full results can be found at:
http://www.tilastopaja.net/ng2001)
Men
200 m, Heats, Heat 1 (+0.8): 1 Han
Chaoming 20.93, Heat 2 (-0.3): 1 Yang
Yaozu 21.17, Heat 3 (-0.3): 1 Xu Zizhou
20.93.
800 m, Heats, Heat 1: 1 Zeng Xiandong (82) 1:49.13, Heat 2: 1 Li Huiquan (87) 1:52.14, Heat 3: 1 Song Mingyou 1:51.04.
5000 m, Heats, Heat 1: 1 Wang Zhicheng 14:06.60; 2 Gong Ke 14:11.08, Heat 2: 1 Zheng Kai 14:26.96; 2 Li Zhuhong (83) 14:27.00.
400 m hurdles, Heats, Heat 1: 1 Tan Chunhua 51.27, Heat 2: 1 Meng Yan 50.67; 2 Li Zhijun 50.74; 3 Zhang Shibao (84) 50.84.
Discus: 1 Li Shaojie 62.84; 2 Nu Ermaimaiti (84) 62.36 Asian Junior Record, World Youth Best 17-year-olds, World Junior Leader 2001, 6th in the World Junior Alltime list; 3 Wu Tao (83) 61.21; 4 Zhang Cunbiao 59.61.
Decathlon (after day one): 1 Qi Haifeng (83) 4026 (11.13/+0.6 7.38/-0.3 13.29 1.96 49.52) - 1 point behind his first day total at World University Games where he scored National Record and Asian Junior Record of 8019; 2 Zhao Lei 3963; 3 Cao Wenli 3910; 4 Du Xiaopeng 3860; 5 Qu Zhengchao 3848; 6 Hong Qingyang 3806.
Women
200 m, Heats, Heat 1 (-0.6): 1 Liu Xiaomei 23.21; 2 Chen Yueqin 23.35, Heat 2 (-0.4): 1 Huang Mei 23.68, Heat 3 (-1.0): 1 Zeng Xiujun 23.77, Heat 4 (+0.6): 1 Li Xuemei 23.20; 2 Chen Yuxiang 23.32; 3 Chen Lisuo 23.39; 4 Hou Xiufen 23.52.
800 m, Semifinals, Heat 1: 1 Zhang Jian 2:02.70; 2 Yang Jinhua 2:02.88;
3 Sun Xiuying 2:03.33; 4 Liu Xiaoping 2:03.82; 5 Yan Wei 2:04.10; 6 Shi Hua 2.04.17, Heat 2: 1 Wang Yuanping 2:02.23; 2 Lin Na 2:02.28; 3 Sun Qiuhong 2:02.34; 4 Feng Lei 2:02.37; 5 Wang Yanchun 2:02.52; 6 Song Lijuan 2:04.29, Heats, Heat 1: 1 Sun Xiuying 2:05.06, Heat 2: 1 Lin Na 2:05.88, Heat 3: 1 Wang Yanchun 2:04.42; 2 Feng Lei 2:04.47; 3 Sun Qiuhong 2:04.54, Heat 4: 1 Yang Jinhua 2:05.72.
5000 m, Heats, Heat 1: 1 Dai Yanyan 15:55.45; 2 Zhang Yuhong (83) 15:55.62; 3 Lu Juan (86) 15:55.65; 4 Hu Xiuying 15:55.81; 5 Wang Chunmei 15:55.91; 6 Wang Xiaoming (85) 15:56.01; 7 Li Meihua 15:56.22; 8 Li Helan 15:58.78, Heat 2: 1 Dong Yanmei 15:27.66; 2 Wei Yanan 15:27.66; 3 Guo Lingling (86) 15:27.70; 4 Liu Min (83) 15:27.81; 5 Xing Huina (84) 15:27.84; 6 Ju Limei 15:27.88; 7 Sun Yingjie 15:27.99; 8 Zhang Yang (83) 15:32.67; 9 Zhang Shujing 15:34.54.
400 m hurdles, Heats, Heat 1: 1 Huang Xiaoxiao (85) 55.61 World Junior Leader 2001; 2 Li Yulian 56.45; 3 Chen Lin 57.16; 4 Jia Wanhong 58.40, Heat 2: 1 Song Yinglan 56.68; 2 Xun Penghua 57.96; 3 Huang Lili 58.74, Heat 3: 1 Xiao Hongfan (83) 56.61; 2 Yao Yuehua 57.83; 3 Li Shuju 58.02; 4 He Linlin 58.22; 5 Peng Yinghua 58.23.
Shot: 1 Li Meiju 18.92; 2 Cheng Xiaoyan 18.78; 3 Song Feina 18.73; 4 Zhang Liuhong 18.56; 5 Jiang Ping 18.54; 6 Qian Chunhua 18.41; 7 Jia Lina 18.41; 8 Li Meisu 18.39; 9 Zhang Xiaoyu (83) 17.80; 10 Yu Juan 17.79; 11 Yang Dehui (83) 17.67; 12 Zhang Ying (84) 17.60.
