Abraham clinches silver

Athletics: Asian Championships: Krishna Poonia brings home womens discus bronze

Abraham, the bronze-medallist in the last edition of the event in Amman, timed 49.96 to come behind Kenji Narisako of Japan in the final.

India had one other medal on the day, with Krishna Poonia claiming the bronze in women’s discus.

Abraham, running in lane eight, gave a stiff fight to Narisako before the Japanese pulled away in the final metres to come up triumphant.

Abraham’s best of 49.51 seconds came at the World Championships in Osaka two years ago while he has a best of 49.59 this season.

The Indian has had a good season this year, even though he was disqualified in the first round at the World Championships in Berlin back in August.

Krishna has had an up and down season thus far but her third-round effort of  59.84 was good enough to put her in third place on the day behind China’s Song Aimin and Ma Xue Jun. Harwant Kaur, India’s other entry in the event, finished a disappointing fifth with 53.83.

Maheswary disappoints

India had disappointment in store in other events. Renjith Maheswary, the defending champion in triple jump, missed the bronze by a centimetre after reaching 16.48 metres. Renjith, with a season’s best of 16.73, was helped by a wind of 4.4 metres per second.

P T Usha-ward Tintu Luka, running in her first major final, paid for her inexperience as she slipped to sixth place in 2:07.61 in the women’s 800 metres. The gold went to China’s Zhou Haiyan in 2:04.89.

Results:

Men: 200M: Omar Alsafa (UAE) 21.07 seconds, 1; Shinji Takahira (Jpn) 21.08, 2; Hitoshi Saito (Jpn) 21.10, 3.

800M: Sajad Moradi (Iri) 1:48.58, 1; Mohammad Alazemi (Kuw) 1:48.93, 2; Adnan Al-Mntfage (Irq) 1:49.00, 3; Prakash Verma (Ind) 1:49.01, 4.

400M hurdles: Kenji Narisako (Jpn) 49.22 seconds, 1; Joseph Abraham (Ind) 49.96, 2; Mubarak S Al Nobi (Qat) 50.19, 3.

High jump: Manjula Kumara Wijesekara (Sri) 2.23 metres, 1; Huang Haiqiang (Chn) 2.23, 2; Vitaliy Tsykunov (Kaz) 2.20, 3; Hari Shankar Roy (Ind) 2,10, 11.

Triple jump: Roman Valiyev (Kaz) 16.70 metres, 1; Zhu Shu Jing (Chn) 16.67, 2; Yevgeniy Ektov (Kaz) 16.49, 3; Renjith Maheswary (Ind) 16.48, 4.

Decathlon: Hiromasa Tanaka (Jpn) 7515 points, 1; Hadi Sepehrzad (Iri) 7262, 2; Zhu Heng Jun (Chn) 7200, 3; Bhartinder Singh (Ind) 6932, 4.  

Women: 200M: Momoko Takahashi (Jpn) 23.53 seconds, 1; Huong Vu Thi (Vie) 23.61, 2; Jiang Lan (Chn) 23.65, 3.

800M: Zhou Haiyan (Chn) 2:04.89, 1; Margarita Matsko (Kaz) 2:05.31, 2; Truong Thanh Hang (Vie) 2:05.33, 3; Tintu Luka (Ind) 2:07.61, 6.

400M hurdles: Satomi Kubokura (Jpn) 56.62 seconds, 1; Mohd Khalid Noraseela (Mas) 57.15, 2; Natalya Asanova (Uzb) 59.37, 3.

Discus throw: Song Ai Min (Chn) 63.90 metres, 1; Ma Xue Jun (Chn) 63.63, 2; Krishna Poonia (Ind) 59.84, 3. Harwant Kaur (Ind) 53.83, 5.

 20km walk: Mayumi Kawasaki (Jpn) 1:30:12, 1; Yang Ya Wei (Chn) 1:34:11, 2; Svetlana Tolstaya (Kaz) 1:36:42, 3.