Hima Das carried on her good form from the under-20 World Championships as she ran a national record time of 51 seconds in the women’s 400 metres to qualify for the semi-finals at the Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang on Saturday.
Nirmala Sheoran also qualified for the finals of the women’s 400 metres after topping her heat. Das finished second in hers, behind the all-time Asian record holder, Salwa Eid Naser of Bahrain.
Muhammad Anas and Arokia Rajiv qualified for the finals of the men’s 400 metres. Anas finished in first place in his semifinal, clocking 45.30 seconds while Rajiv was a tad slower, finishing in 46.08 seconds in the other semifinal. This was Anas’ second-fastest time ever as the Kerala athlete had set a new national record of 45.24 seconds earlier this year.
In the morning, Anas running in Heat 1, clocked a time of 45.63 seconds and topped the list of qualifiers overall. Running in lane 3, the 23-year-old from Kallambalam in Kerala ran on the inside and won his Heat, finishing ahead of his Qatari rival, Mohamed Abbas, who finished the race in 45.81 seconds.
The national record holder in the quarter-mile, Anas finished fourth in the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, shaving 0.01 seconds off his national record. Rajiv, the bronze medal winner in 400 metres at Incheon four years ago, came second in Heat 4, finishing with a time of 46.82 seconds.
Sreeshankar Murali needed only one jump to make the Long jump finals as he managed a 7.83 metre-jump first up. The 19-year-old is taking part in his first major international multi-disciplinary meet after missing out on the Commonwealth Games.
Dutee Chand also qualified for the semi-finals of the 100 meters after winning her heat comfortably. The Indian needed 11.38 seconds to qualify third overall.
In the high jump event, Balasubramanya Chethan qualified for the finals with a jump of 2.15m in Group B. The 22-year-old jumper, who had won the 2017 Federation Cup, cleared 2.05 and 2.10 metres with no faults but failed to clear 2.15 on his first attempt but managed to do so on his second.
Sarita Singh finished fifth in the women’s Hammer Throw final. She managed a best throw of 62.03 metres on her third throw, but fouled her final two throws and could not improve on her third attempt.
Suriya Loganathan and Sanjivani Jadhav, the two women’s 10000 metres runners finished sixth and ninth.
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