Asian Athletics: Sachin, Yashvir in javelin throw final; 4x100m men's relay team disqualified

Gumi (South Korea): India's 4x100m men's relay team was on Friday disqualified during the preliminary round after a faulty baton exchange but Sachin Yadav and Yashvir Singh made the men's javelin throw finals alongside reigning Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan in the Asian Athletics Championships here.

The quartet of Pranav Pramod Gaurav, Ragul Kumar Ganesh, Manikanta Hoblidhar and Amlan Borgohain was knocked out of the competition after being found guilty of baton exchange outside the takeover zone, violating World Athletics' Technical Rule 24.7.

The Malaysian team was also disqualified for a similar violation.

However, there was good news for the Indian contingent elsewhere as Sachin and Yashvir entered the 12-man javelin throw final.

While Sachin covered 79.62m to be placed fifth, Yashvir qualified for Saturday's finale with a throw of 76.67m.

At the top was Nadeem, who is appearing in his first competition since the gold-winning monstrous throw of 92.97m in the Paris Olympics last year. He came up with an effort of 86.34m in the qualifying round.

In other events, women's 100m hurdles gold-winner Jyothi Yarraji and Nithya Gandhe advanced to the 200m finals after clocking 23.74sec and 23.77sec respectively in their heats.

In the men's 200m event, Animesh Kujur entered the semifinals after clocking 20.98sec in his preliminary race.

Also, India continued to be the gold favourite in heptathlon after Nandini Agsara took her tally to 4500 points at the end of five events, long jump being held this morning where she finished on top after covering 6.13m.

She leads China's Liu Jingyi, who has 4210 points, with just javelin throw and 800m events left to be completed later this evening. PTI PM PM AH AH