Asian Games: Tejinder Toor clinches gold in shot put with record throw

Jakarta: Tajinderpal Toor set an Asian Games record in shot put with a throw of 20.75m and earned India their seventh gold medal in Jakarta.

He also broke the previous national record of 20.69m, held by Om Prakash Singh. It’s the eighth men’s shot put gold for India in Asian Games history.

The 23-year-old Navy personnel is the first Indian to win the men’s shot put gold at the Asian Games since Bahadur Singh, who had thrown a best of 19.03m, to win gold at Busan in 2002.

Tajinderpal, who had won silver at the Asian Championships in Bhubaneswar, Odisha in 2017 in the same event, started with a throw of 19.96m and claimed the gold, ahead of Liu Yang of China (19.52m) and Ivan Ivanov of Kazakhstan (19.40m), both of whom registered their season’s best throws.

This gold helps him put behind the disappointment of the Commonwealth Games earlier this year, where his best of 19.42m was only good enough for the eighth place.

Toor lived up to the billing of being the strongest contender as he was the season leader among the Asian athletes in this event. His earlier personal best was 20.24m, which he came up with last year.

The Punjab shot-putter cleared 19.96m in his first and fourth attempts before coming up with a huge throw of 20.75m in his fifth and penultimate throw. China’s Liu Yang took the silver with a best throw of 19.52m while Ivan Ivanov of Kazakhstan won the bronze with 19.40m.

Hima Das set a new national record in race, clocking 51.00 in the 400m heats on Saturday. She finished second behind Bahrain’s Salwa Naser’s Games record timing of 50.86, to qualify for Sunday’s event. Naser was the silver medallist at last year’s World Championships.

The previous national record in the event belonged to Manjit Kaur, who had clocked 51.05 in Chennai in 2004. Hima’s personal best prior to this was 51.13, which she got at the National Inter-state meet in Guwahati in June this year.

Quarter-miler Nirmala Sheoran also qualified for the finals with a timing of 54.09. In the men’s 400m, Muhammed Anas finished on top in the semi-finals with a timing of 45.30, while Arokia Rajiv qualified in sixth position with a timing of 46.08.

In the 100m, Dutee Chand topped her heats with a timing of 11.38 (her personal best is11.24, set in Almaty, Kazakahstan,2016). The 100m semi-finals will be held on Sunday.

Woman hammer thrower Sarita Singh hurled the iron ball to 62.03 metres in the women’s hammer throw event to finish a respectable fifth in the event which saw the first two places on the podium taken up by China,  Na Luo of China reached the distance of 71.42 metres, while her compatriot Zheng Wang (70.86) took silver ahead of Japan’s Hitomi Katsuyama (62.95).

Indian challenge in the women’s 10000m, however, fizzled out early on as Suriya Logananthan and Sanjivani Jadhav ran uncharacteristic long distance run to finish sixth and ninth, respectively.

Kyrgyzstan’s Daria Maslova won the gold medal by clocking 32 minutes 07.23 seconds as she knelt down after crossing the finish line before accepting applause from almost a packed stadium. Bahrain’s Eunice Chumba won the silver in 32:11.12, while China’s Deshun Zhang (32:12.78) won the bronze medal.

Japan’s Hiroto Inoue won the men’s marathon after crossing the finish line in 2 hours,18 minutes and 22 seconds.

Bahrain’s Elhassan Elabbassi bagged silver in 2 hours, 18 minutes and 22.678 seconds, while China’s Bujie Duo won bronze by clocking 2 hours, 18 minutes and 48.000 seconds. (UNI)