India's Kaur finishes a poor 37th in 20km walk

India’s Kh­ushbir Kaur ended 37th in the women’s 20km walk won by China’s Liu Hong at the 15th World Championships in athletics here on Friday.

Khushbir timed one hour 38 minutes and 53 seconds to struggle to the finish on a hot morning in the Chinese capital. Of the 49 starters, 42 completed the race.

 India’s other entry, Sapana, was disqualified after the first five kilometres itself, making it a miserable morning for the National Games champion.

 Khushbir, the national record holder at 1:31:40 and the Asian Games silver medallist, had finished 38th in the last World Championships in Moscow, clocking 1:34:28.

 Liu, the world record holder in this event, and her compatriot Lu Xiuzhi fought a two-way battle for most of the race before the former edged ahead in the final stages to win her country’s first gold medal of these championships. Liu clocked 1:27.45 followed by Lu who was also given the same timing, though Liu’s win was never in doubt.

 Discus final today

 Vikas Gowda will be fighting for a better placing in the discus throw final on Saturday while the Indian 4x400 relay team also will be seen in action, with the first round scheduled for Saturday.

 Vikas, seventh in the two previous World Championships, will kick off the proceedings as the first thrower in a group of 12.

The relay team will be keen to clock a good time as the aggregate of two best timings within the qualification period (Jan 1, 2015 to July 11, 2016) will be used to determine the Olympic selection. There will be 16 teams in the relay event for Rio, with eight of them coming from this year’s World Relays that was held in Bahamas. The remaining eight will be based on the rankings at the end of the qualification period.

The discus throw finalists (Season’s bests and Personal Bests within brackets): Vikas Gowda (Ind, SB: 65.75, PB: 66.28); Piotr Malachowski (Pol, 68.29, 71.84); Fedrick Dacres (Jam, 66.40, 66.75); Daniel Stahl (Swe, 63.88, 66.89); Apostolos Parellis (Cyp, 65.04, 65.36); Julian Wruck (Aus, 63.88, 68.16); Maurico Ortega (Col, 64.47, 64.47); Benn Harradine (Aus, 66.75, 68.20); Philip Milanov (Bel, 66.66, 66.66); |Gerd Kanter (Est, 66.02, 73.38); Christophe Harting (Ger, 67.93, 67.93); Robert Urbanek (Pol, 66.31, 66.93).

Results: 20km walk: Liu Hong (China) 1:27:45, 1; Lu Xiuzhi (China) 1:27:45, 2; Lyudmila Olyanovska (Ukraine) 1:28:13, 3.