A determined Luo Na won China the gold medal from women's hammer throw final at the Asian Games here on Saturday by beating her teammate Wang Zheng, the current Asian record holder.
The 25-year-old dominated the field to lead from beginning and secured the title with a stunning 71.42 meters in her fourth try. Wang took silver with 70.86 meters, Hitomi Katsyama from Japan pocketed bronze with 62.95 meters.
On the track, China's star sprinter Su Bingtian, the co-holder of the Asian 100 meters record, qualified as the winner of heat 4 at 10.27 seconds with his teammate Xu Zhouzheng.
A relatively slow reaction time of 0.154s cost Su's chance to lead at the start, but his extraordinary acceleration brought him to finish the first in the group comfortably.
"The block was not put in the right angle, so the start was not good, disrupting my rhythm," said Su. "Start will be the key for tomorrow."
As the top seed of the most watched race, Su clocked 9.91 seconds in the men's 100-meter race at the Paris leg of the 2018 IAAF Diamond League in June, which tied the Asian record created by the Nigerian-born Qatari Femi Ogunode in 2015.
Femi is absent from Jakarta Asian Games, but his younger brother Tosin Ogunode, also on behalf of Qatar, advanced from the heats.
"My goal is to win the gold here, not for new record," said Su. "There's many opportunities to create new record. No rush this time," said Su.
Another task for the veteran is to lead the younger peers, including Xu, to polish their skills at the Asian Games so as to prepare the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020, he added.
In women's 100-meter race, China's Wei Yongli and Liang Xiaojing both qualified as heat winners.
In men's shot put final, Indian Tajinderpal Singh Toor grabbed gold by breaking the Asian Games record with a 20.75 mark on his fifth attempt. The 23-year-old athlete won the nation's seventh gold at Jakarta.
China's Liu Yang proved a cut above Ivan Ivanov from Kazakhstan to nail silver with 19.52 meters, while Ivanov brought home bronze with 19.40 meters.
Duobujie won China a bronze medal in men's marathon final beginning as early as 6. a.m. in the day, while the 25-year-old Japanese Hiroto Inoue edged veteran Elhassan Elabbassi from Bahrain, 34, to win the gold by some three hundredths of a second.
Daria Maslova won kyrgyzstan the second gold at Jakarta from women's 10,000 meters final with 32:07.23. Eunice Chumba from Bahrain outraced Chinese Zhang Deshu to claim silver with 32:11.12, while Zhang pocketed the country's second athletics bronze at Jakarta with 32:12.78.
The finals of men's and women's 100 meters races are scheduled on Monday.
