Thursday, May 28, 2009

KUNSHAN (China): Om Prakash Singh stretched his record abroad to 19.48m from the previous leg’s 19.36m while winning the shot put gold in the second leg of the Asian Grand Prix here on Wednesday.

The first leg winner, Chinese Taipei’s Chang Ming-Huang could manage only 19.28m this time and settled for the silver. Indian Saurabh Vij took the bronze at 18.67. Om Prakash has a personal best of 19.74 metres recorded at home.

Surendra Singh picked up his second gold of the circuit, winning the men’s 5000 metres in an all-India sweep. The other Indian medallists in this event were Kashinath Aswale and Sandeep Kumar.

Bibin Mathew improved upon his first-leg performance in the men’s 400 metres but still had to be satisfied with the silver behind Chinese Liu Xiaosheng (46.42). India’s V.B. Bineesh (47.12) claimed the bronze.

Indian sprint relay teams had the dubious distinction of not finishing the race in both sections.

Saturday, 23 May 2009

Suzhou, China - On a day of one-sided contests, Chinese Huang Xiaoxiao and Kazakh Marina Maslenko were involved in a photo-finish in the women’s 400m as the Asian Grand Prix kicked of today. Both clocked 53.30 seconds, but the Chinese got the nod for the win.

All three fixtures of the 2009 Asian GP - Suzhou, Kunshan and Hong Kong - are part of a select group of Area meetings at which points can be acquired by athletes to qualify for the IAAF / VTB Bank World Athletics Final, to be held on 12-13 September in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Song dominates in the Discus Throw

With the Japanese dropping out at the last moment, apart from other withdrawals, the contests could not reach the expected heights. Yet, there were a few performers who lived up to their reputations and standing, none more emphatic in victory than Chinese Song Aimin in women’s Discus Throw.

The world leader this season with 64.83m, Song reached 63.91ms and that effort dwarfed the field which contained the top three Indians. Krishna Poonia could manage only 57.26m as against her season best of 58.95k. Seema Antil, struggling to come back into the kind of form that took her past the 64-metre mark in 2004, after a lean season last year, recorded a season best 55.94m that was only good enough for third.

Also living up to his stature was Chinese 110m high hurdler Shi Dongpeng who won in 13.58, a tenth of a second outside his season best. He was given a good fight over the hurdles by 18-year-old team-mate Xie Wenjun, but class and experience prevailed in the end.

Chinese javelin thrower Qin Qiang nailed a victory with a personal best 80.24m that put him among the top 15 in the world for the season. The 26-year-old Chinese had, incidentally, registered his previous best of 80.21m at the very same venue during the trials for the World Championships in 2007. He is now within the ‘B’ standard (78.00) for the Berlin World Championships.

The better-rated Korean Park Jae-Myung, who has crossed 83m this season, and another Chinese, Chen Qi, were second and third with 77.21m and 76.17m respectively.

In a close contest in the men’s 800m, Kuwait’s Mohammed Al-Azemi prevailed over Iranian Sadjad Moradi, 1:48.64 to 1:48.67 with two places behind them, Chinese Li Xiangyu and Indian Prakash Verma, coming under 1:49.

In the women’s High Jump, 21-year-old Uzbek, Nadiya Dussanova, scaled a personal best 1.95m to take the victory against a tough field. Yeketerina Yevseyeva (Kazakhstan) and Svetlana Radzivil (Uzbekistan) took the minor medals at 1.93m and 1.91m respectively but the surprising part was Anna Ustinova of Kazakhstan failing to reach the podium, finishing joint sixth with 2002 Asian Games champion Tatyana Effimenko of Kyrgyzstan at 1.84m.

The men’s High Jump did not have any surprises with the Asian champion, Lee Hup Wei of Malaysia, going over a season best 2.24m. Kazakhstan’s Sergey Zassimovich, who took two titles in the 2007 circuit, finished with second with 2.20m while Chinese Xu Xin clinched third on a countback after being tied at 2.15m with Indian Benedict Starli.

The expected duel in the men’s Triple Jump did not come off with Chinese Li Yanxi being absent. Korean Kim Deok-Hyun, the man in form this season, took the gold with a season-best 16.84m while Kazakhstan’s Yevgeniy Ektov had to surprisingly settle for third at 16.63m, behind 17-year-old Chinese Shu Cao who had the second best jump of his career, 16.68m.

Another Chinese youngster, 19-year-old Su Bingtian claimed the men’s 100m in 10.48, easily holding off the challenge from Sri Lankan Abepitiyage Shehan Sadaruwan who timed 10.59. Missing from the field were Japanese Naoki Tsukahara and Chinese Wen Yongyi, both experienced sprinters.

Experience prevailed in the women’s 100m, with Uzbek Guzel Khubbieva, 33, winning in 11.31, a season’s best for her. There was no challenge worth the name from Chinese Yulia Tao and Thai Nongnuch Sanrat who finished second and third.

Thursday, 21 May 2009

Hong Kong, China - There is an air of expectancy as the three-leg Asian Grand Prix circuit is poised to make a start at Suzhou, China, on Saturday, 23 May. The other two legs will also be hosted by China, the second one in Kunshan on 27 May and the final meet in Hong Kong on 30 May.

All three fixtures of the 2009 Asian GP - Suzhou, Kunshan and Hong Kong - are part of a select group of Area meetings at which points can be acquired by athletes to qualify for the IAAF / VTB Bank World Athletics Final, to be held on 12-13 September in Thessaloniki, Greece.

The standout names entered for the series are Song Aimin of China, who was fourth at the Beijing Olympics and is the current world season leader in the women’s Discus Throw, and her compatriot Shi Dongpeng, the 110m Hurdler who was a finalist at the 2003 and 2007 World champs.
As well as these two top names the Asian Athletics Association (AAA) has managed to attract a fairly formidable entry list, especially in the field events, for this year’s continental Grand Prix series which is being staged a month earlier than usual.

It can therefore be assumed that competition will be of a high enough level to enable many Area athletes to achieve qualification standards for the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Berlin, Germany (15 to 23 Aug). The meets will also provide an opportunity for the teams to aim for the standards in the relay events to make it to the World Champs.

China, Kazakhstan and to a lesser extent Japan have entered some of their best athletes. Athletes from Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are once again conspicuous by their absence. Indian athletes who managed to make a good impression last year with a bagful of medals will find the going tough this time around.
The prize money structure has remained from the previous two years, gold: 1500 dollars, silver: 800 dollars and bronze: 500 dollars. There will be 17 events including eight in the women’s section.

A look at some of the key contests that should develop through the circuit:

MEN

100m: The presence of Naoki Tsukahara should give the circuit the kind of stature that it might have been missing in the sprints in the previous years. The 24-year-old Japanese tops the Asian season lists with the personal best 10.13 clocked in Osaka while winning the 100 metres in the IAAF World Athletics Tour meet (9 May).
His 10.16 in the second round of the Beijing Olympics gave Tsukahara second place behind Qatari Samuel Francis in last year’s Asian lists while he had a 10.15 in 2007.
The Asian Games silver medallist in Doha looks to be in great form and that should be bad news for Chinese Wen Yongyi who had swept the Asian GP circuit in 2006 and might have been looking to do the same this time too. Thai Sittichai Suwonprateep, Vietnamese Nguyen Van Huynh and Indonesian Lumain Fernando are the other prominent contenders.

400m: Zimbabwe’s Lloyd Zvasiya is the only prominent non-Asian entry even though this year’s circuit was expected to attract a lot more from outside the continent having been declared ‘open’. Though he has a PB of 45.51, clocked back in 2003, he could only run 49 seconds last year!!! Twenty-one-year-old Chinese Liu Xiaosheng could be the man to beat then, with Sri Lankan Rohita Pushpakumara and Indian Bibin Mathew expected to provide stiff challenge.

110m Hurdles: Shi Dongpeng, the fifth place finisher in the 2007 World Champs is yet to emerge out of the shadows of Liu Xiang, should remain unchallenged, even though he only has a season best 13.48 (second in Osaka on 9 May).
Team-mate Xie Wenjun, just 18, but with a bag of two silver medals from last year’s circuit could be the man closest to Shi Dongpeng who was an Olympic semi-finalist last year, and Japanese Yukito Irie should be another challenger.

High Jump: Asian champion Lee Hup Wei of Malaysia will have to contend with Kazakh Sergey Zasimovich. The latter had won two of three titles in 2007, but with 2.22m leaps in Fukuroi and Osaka (5th), both this month, Lee should have the edge over the Kazakh.
Indian Hari Shankar Roy has touched early form as indicated by his 2.21 in the Indian Grand Prix meet in Chennai this month and should be aiming for a higher mark in his quest towards World Championships qualification.

Triple Jump: Perhaps the best contest among all men’s events should develop here, what with a clutch of top-ranked performers expected to cross swords. Asian Games champion Li Yanxi of China, who was 10th in the Olympic final last summer and has a 17.30m PB (Beijing qualification) takes on Roman Valiyev of Kazakhstan, and another Kazakh, Yevgeniy Ektov, who reached a personal best 17.07 last year while winning the Korat leg, are in the line-up. None are yet in 17m form but when you throw in Korean Kim Deok-Hyung, who has the best mark among the contestants here for the season (16.73m), you get an idea about the way the medals can swing.

WOMEN

100m: At 33, Guzel Khubbieva is a veteran, though her hunger for success has not diminished. The Uzbek, who swept the sprint titles last year in the circuit, should start the favourite once again. Her main opposition could come from Kazakhstan’s Natlya Ivoninskaya.

400m: The two Kazakhs, Olga Tereshkova and Marina Maslenko, had their task made easy when Indians Mandeep Kaur and Chitra Soman pulled out. The Indians have hit a ‘low’ this season and there aren’t immediate replacements named in an event where India has had a major hold for several years.

800m: Vietnam’s Truong Thanh Hang was unmatched in the 1500 metres last year while winning all the three legs. This time, in the shorter distance, she could find a horde of contenders of almost equal capability. The odd woman out, if one could call her that, is Chinese Liu Qing, the only sub-two-minute runner in the fray (1:59.74 in 2005). Her current form does not indicate anything close to sub-two, however. The rest, Margarita Matsko and Viktoriya Yalovestyeva of Kazakhstan, Irina Moroz of Uzbekistan and Sushma Devi of India are in the 2:03-2:04 bracket. It could be anybody’s race.

High Jump: A top-class field with little to choose from among the leading six. Kazakhstan’s Anna Ustinova had swept the three legs last year, two of them at 1.91m and the last one 1.86m. With the 2002 Asian Games champion and joint continental record-holder Tatyana Effimenko (1.97) joining the battle, it could be a tougher task for Ustinova. Anyone else from among the rest four, Yeketerina Yevsyeva (Kazakhstan), Svetlana Radzivil (Uzbekistan), Nadiya Dusanova (Uzbekistan) and Zheng Xingjuan (China) can upset the calculations of the top two.

Discus Throw: The traditional battle-ground for the Chinese and Indians. This time around, the Indians, Krishna Poonia and Harwant Kaur, are struggling to find the kind of form that saw them touch great heights in the Olympic year (only to disappoint in Beijing) while the Chinese, Song Aimin, the Asian Games champion in Doha, is in top form, as could be gauged by her 64.83 metres at Zhaoqing last month that put her on top of the world season’s lists.

Song Aimin is very much the star of at least the women’s section of this Asian GP Series, given that she was fourth in the Beijing Olympics, and the season before was seventh at the World championships in Osaka.The other Chinese, Li Yanfeng, has crossed 58 metres this season, something that Poonia has also achieved.

Thursday May 14 2009

KUALA TERENGGANU, April 19 - Former Olympian Kamaruddin Maidin, 66, the first athlete from Terengganu to represent Malaysia in the 1960 Rome Olympics, died of a chronic liver ailment at 1.30pm today at the Sultanah Nur Zahirah Hospital (HSNZ) here.

Kamaruddin who became the first Malaysian athlete to win five consecutive SEAP Games gold medals and two triple jump gold medals starting 1959, was earlier admitted to the HSNZ Intensive Care Unit nine days ago when his condition deteriorated and until yesterday he was in a coma.

He leaves behind wife, Rajemah Sheikh Ahmad, also an athlete and 1966 Asian Games bronze medal winner (4×100m), and six children, all boys.

His son Kamarezuan, 37, said all family members were by his side when he passed away.

“The funeral will be held at our home in Permint Jaya, Chendering and he will be buried at the Sheikh Ibrahim Muslim Cemetery after Asar prayers today,” he told Bernama here today.

Kamaruddin, a triple and long jump champion was among three Malaysians, the other two being Dr M Jegathesan and Dr Shaharudin Ali, who represented the country in the Rome Olympics.

The outspoken Kamaruddin who had groomed numerous athletes in the state and national level throughout his 50 odd years in athletics, had been suffering from a liver ailment since 2003 and had received treatment at the Ampang Puteri Hospital, Kuala Lumpur the same year.

Meanwhile, Malaysian Amateur Athletics Union (MAAU) deputy president Karim Ibrahim said Kamaruddin’s demise was a great loss to athletics, especially in Terengganu, as he had been actively involved in the sport even when he was suffering from his ailment.

“He was a great athlete, always dedicated, committed and stood up for athletes when they were in trouble. With his vast knowledge in athletics, he was like an athletics institution,” said Karim.

Yesterday, National Athlete Welfare Foundation (Yakeb) executive chairman Datuk Mumtaz Jaafar had also visited Kamaruddin at HSZN.

Rajemah who is currently the Terengganu Amateur Athletic Association (POAT) secretary had yesterday expressed her disappointment because though her husband had served the nation as an athlete and official all these years, nobody from the National Sports Council or state sports council had visited him when his was in the hospital for nine days.

May 07, 2009

KUALA LUMPUR, May 7 (Bernama) — The Malaysian Amateur Athletic Union (MAAU) has decided to withdraw from the Philippines Open athletics meet that starts on Sunday, due to the recent Influenza A H1N1 outbreak.

MAAU deputy president Karim Ibrahim said the decision to withdraw was made in accordance with advise from the Health Ministry.

“We wrote a letter to the Health Ministry on May 4, seeking advise and after three days, we received a reply from the (ministry) that advised us not to participate in the Philippines Open due to health hazards posed by the H1N1 virus,” he told Bernama here today.

Thus, in complying with the advice, MAAU has informed the Philippines athletic association of the decision to withdraw from the annual competition, he said.

“Instead, the Malaysian team comprising 23 athletes will now participate in the two-day Kedah Open held at the Darulaman Stadium on May 9-10,” he said.

Among the national athletes in the team were — Robani Hassan (men’s 110m hurdles), M. Vadivellan, Mohd Jironi Ridzuan (men’s 1,500m, 800m), Zabidi Ahmad (men’s 100m, 4×100m); Roslinda Samsu (women’s pole vault) and Noraseela Khalid (women’s 400m hurdles).

According to the World Health Organisation website today, 23 countries globally have reported 1893 confirmed cases of influenza A (H1N1) infection.

Mexico, the epicenter of the virus, reported 942 laboratory confirmed cases, including 29 deaths while the United States reported 642 laboratory confirmed cases, with two deaths.

Countries reported to have confirmed cases with no deaths are Austria, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.