Asian Games athletics: Ashwini, Jauna qualify for 400m hurdles

GUANGZHOU - India’s Ashwini Chidananda Akkunji and Jauna Murmu qualified for the women’s 400 metre hurdles with personal best timings at the Asian Games here Wednesday.

Both Ashwini and Jauna topped their heats.

Jauna qualified with a timing of 57.17 seconds while Ashwini, whose season’s best is 59.26 seconds, clocked 56.43 seconds. The final of the event will be held Thursday.

In the men’s 400 metre hurdles, Joseph Abraham qualified with a timing of 50.93.

In men’s decathlon, Bharat Inder Singh came third with a throw of 14.50 metres in shot put that fetched him 749 points. He had earlier come sixth in long jump, leaping 7.12 metres and collecting 842 points, and finished eighth in the 100 metre race. With his good show in shot put, Inder Singh jumped to second place in overall standing after three events with a total of 2,448 points in the 10 discipline event.

Another Indian, Joseph Pulimoottil, was seventh in long jump (6.91 m) and fourth in shot put (14.31 m) collecting 792 and 747 points. Joseph was sixth in 100 metres. He is at sixth place with 2,389 points after three events.

Kazakhstan’s Dmitry Karpov, who topped the shot put event with a throw of 16.95 metres, led with 2,635 points.