LIMA (Peru) – 30 August 2024:
The penultimate day’s competitions started with sweet success for the Asian athletes, who conquered the women’s 10,000m race walk podium and garnered medals in other events in the World U20 athletics championships here.
Zhuong Baima won silver in this year’s Asian U20 championships in Dubai, finishing behind teammate Pang Liping. In Lima, Chen Meiling replaced Liping.
Australia’s Alexandra Griffin was the favourite to win in Lima. She landed there with a world junior lead of 45:56.22, which she clocked in Adelaide four months ago. Griffin, along with teammate Chelsea Roberts, led the proceedings briefly.
From the land of racewalkers, Renata Cortes from Mexico, together with Italians Michelle Canto and Giulia Gabriele, and Alessia Cristina Pop from Romania, provided the required challenge to the leaders.
But the Chinese racewalkers, remaining on the lead bunch with India’s Aarti, had other plans. Cortes and Aarti were cautioned about the loss of contact and threaded carefully on the ground.
Baima significantly improved and finished the race four minutes faster than her winning time in Dubai. Her time here, 43:26.60, was a new World U20 lead. Meiling also posted 44:30.67 for the silver, while Aarti also won her second international medal by claiming the bronze with a new Indian junior best of 44:39.39 today.
However, in the U20 men’s race, Asian athletes finished outside the podium in spite of clocking personal bests. Osaka Sohtaroh (Japan, 39:39.36), Song Zhaohe (China, 39:41.01), Wang Jiaqi (China, 40:14.62) and Yoshizako Taisei (Japan, 40:14.67) have been finished from fifth to eighth in that order.
Yan Ziyi became the first Asian woman to win Javelin Throw:
A few Chinese javelin throwers besides Japan’s Tomoka Kawazoe (2018) had won medals in World U20 championships earlier. However, it was the first time that an Asian woman clinches the Gold as Yan Ziyi achieved the honour with a superb 63.05m in Lima.
The 16-year-old Ziyi hails from Zhejiang province. She arrived here after setting a World U20 Record of 64.28m in Hangzhou this April and was a hot favourite to win the event. Ziyi proved her mettle as her winning mark of 63.05m was nearly nine metres farther than that of the silver medalist Chu Pin-Hsun of Chinese Taipei (54.28m). Evelyn Bliss of the United States took the bronze with 51.01m.
Japanese athletes garnered three medals:
It was a profitable day for Japan as their athletes won one silver and two bronze medals on the fourth day of competitions here.
Pole vaulter Rikuya Yoshida rapidly improved his personal best to 5.40m to pocket the silver medal. He was also a silver medalist in the Asian U20 championships in Dubai. In the biggest shock, the winner in Dubai, Qatar’s Abdesalam Seifeldin could not go above 5.05m in Lima and thus landed outside the podium.
In Dubai, Seifeldin retained the Asian U20 title after equalling his PB of 5.51m.
Asian junior champion Ko Ochiai took a bronze in the 800m (1:47.03). Ethiopian General Berhanu Ayansa (1:46.86) and Australian Peyon Craig (1:46.95) went home with gold and silver medals. The Asian U20 silver medalist Hatim Oulghazi (Qatar) finished sixth in 1:47.96. Rin Kubo (Japan, 2:03.31) finished sixth in the women’s race.
High jumper Kaisei Nakatani got the other bronze by clearing 2.19m, while China’s Dong Ziang missed a medal as he was finishing fourth (2.17m). American Scottie Vines won the event, sailing over 2.25m.
In the 110m hurdles, Chinese Chen Yuanjiang set a new national U20 record (13.21 secs) and won the bronze medal. American duo of Ja’Kobe Tharp (13.05s) and Andre Korbmacher (13.14s) went home with superior medals.
The other Asian hurdler in the race, Qatar’s Oumar Doudai Abakar, finished fourth in 13.44 secs. Abakar was the Asian U20 champion with a time of 13.24 secs.
In the women’s shot put, Ching-Yuan Chiang from Chinese Taipei took the bronze medal. The 17-year-old set a new national U20 record of 16.01m while winning the medal. Two Chinese throwers in the fray, Lin Jiaxin (15.39m) and Tian Xinyi (15.15m) finished fourth and sixth respectively.
Lin is the current Asian junior champion in this event. Incidentally, both Lin (16.33m) and Xinyi (16.35m) hold better marks on their credit.
In the 200m finals, Asian U20 champion Lin Yinglan (China) and silver medalist Magnus Johannsson (Hong Kong, China) finished seventh in their respective categories.
Ram. Murali Krishnan for Asian Athletics
Photos by: Tony Dou
