2019 Asian Champs Diary: Abderrahman Samba wins in 47.51 WL, fastest ever in April

DOHA (QAT, Apr 22): On the second day of the Asian Championships four World leads were the highlights. Qatar’s Abderrahman Samba smashed the championship record in the 400m hurdles by more than one second, improving the mark from 48.67 to 47.51 in his first competition of the season over the hurdles, also a World lead and fastest ever in April. Chinese Taipei’s Chieh Chen was second in 48.92 with India’s Jabir Madari Plliyalil third in 49.13. Samba’s teammate Abubaker Haydar Abdalla just missed the championship record in the 800m but front ran to victory in 1:44.33 (51.09 through 400m) WL and PB to win by more than two seconds. There were also championship records and world-leading marks from China’s Wang Zheng in the hammer with 75.66m ahead of compatriot Luo Na (72.23m) while Asian record-holder Chao-Tsun Cheng from Chinese Taipei won the javelin with 86.72m ahead of India’s Shivpal Singh (86.23 PB) and Japan’s Ryohei Arai (81.93m). Elsewhere on the track, Kazakhstan’s Olga Safronova won the women’s 100m title in a championship record of 11.17 (11.21 in the heat) ahead of China’s Liang Xiaojing (11.28), Indian Dutee Chand clocked national record 11.26 in semifinals. Japan’s Yoshihide Kiryu won the men’s 100m title in 10.10 (10.12 in the semifinal) ahead of Indonesia’s world U20 champion Lalu Muhammad Zohri who set a national record of 10.13. Kuwait’s Yousef Karam clocked a national record of 44.84 to win a high quality 400m final ahead of Bahrain’s Abbas Abubaker (45.14 PB) and Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Litvin (45.25 national record) and Thailand lowered their national record and championship record to 38.72 to qualify fastest for the 4x100m final. Uzbekistan’s Rulsan Kurbanov won the triple jump with a 16.93m PB, India’s Tejinder Pal Singh went out to 20.22m in the shot put and China’s Lu Minjia won the long jump with 6.38m. In other track finals, Vietnam’s Thi Lan Quach won the 400m hurdles in 56.10 ahead of Bahrain’s Aminat Yusuf Jamal (56.39) and India’s Gomathi Marimuthu beat China’s Wang Chunyu in the 800m, 2:02.70 PB to 2:02.96.