Abbas misses out on final berth; Rania makes Games debut
Tribune News Network
Doha/Jakarta
As expected Qatar's 400m champion Abdelelah Haroun breezed through his Asian Games heat at the GBK Main Stadium on Saturday topping the semi-final race clocking 45.83secs, and finishing overall third on the qualification list.
While Haroun will run the 400m final on Sunday, the other Qatar athlete in the same event Mohamed Abbas missed out by a whisker. Abbas had finished with a time of 46.33secs.
Haroun, however, appeared at ease as the 2015 Asian and Doha Diamond League 2018 winner finished ahead of Bahrain's Khamis Ali (46.07) in the semi-final heat.
Sunday will also see Qatar's star athlete and 400m hurdler Abderrahman Samba swing into action.
Samba, who has been in top form scorching the time charts and breaking records, has been training hard in Jakarta for the past one week.
Team Qatar, meanwhile, had another delight in athletics as Tosin Ogunode qualified for the men's 100m final. Tosin topped his heat clocking 10.16secs to qualify as overall third best finisher.
Tosin will face tough challenge from Chinese speedster Su Bingtian who clearly saved his energy for an expected attempt on the continent's 100 metres record.
Su's 10.27sec was enough to win his heat but only the seventh-fastest time overall, and way off the 9.91 he clocked in June to equal Femi Ogunode's (Tosin's elder brother) Asian record.
Su admitted he had made a slow start to the meet in Jakarta, but said he was relaxed about finding an extra burst of pace in Sunday's semis and final.
"There are many races later, so for me, this one does not need to be the best," he said.
"For me, I just need to have my normal performance, should not think too much," Su added.
Su's 9.91 is the fourth quickest worldwide this year, but the 28-year-old's coach says he has the potential to go under 9.80.
Su shares the Asian record with Femi Ogunode, who pipped him to gold in the last Asian Games 100m final.
Ogunode is not competing in Jakarta, but his younger brother Tosin has fired a warning shot with an impressive 10.16, ahead of Rio 2016 semi-finalist Ryota Yamagata of Japan.
In the men's high jump an event so different now in the absence of world champion Mutaz Essa Barshim, who is nursing an ankle injury Qatar's Mohamed Hamdi scaled himself to overall fifth position clearing 2.15m in qualification.
In men's decathlon, Qatar's Mohamed al Mannai was contesting vigorously to make the final.
In the women's hammer throw, Qatar's 17-year-old Asian Games debutante Rania al Naji threw 49.62m which wasn't in the league of champion throwers but given her age and experience it was a good show all the same. She does have the potential and can be expected to do much better in the future.
The event was won by China's Na Luo, who threw the hammer a whopping 71.42m.
Her compatriot Zheng Wang with 70.86 claimed the silver, while Japan's Hitomi Katsuyama (62.95) clinched the bronze.
The biggest reception of athletics' opening night was for homegrown teenage sprinter Lalu Zohri in the men's 100m, whose name was chanted by thousands of boisterous Indonesians packing one end of the stadium.
Zohri's rags-to-riches story has melted hearts in Indonesia after he stormed to a shock victory at last month's world junior championships becoming Indonesia's first ever medallist at the tournament.
Zohri was raised in a bamboo shack in the northern part of Lombok island, the area most severely hit by recent earthquakes. The 18-year-old also clocked 10.27 to reach Sunday's semi-finals. Taiwan's Yang Chunhan was the fastest overall at 10.13.