Asian Athletics: Manpreet, Lakshmanan strike gold on Day 1

BHUBANESHWAR: Shot-putter Manpreet Kaur celebrated her birthday in style, fetching India's the first gold medal in the 22ndAsian Athletics Championships at the Kalinga Stadium here on Thursday evening. India's other gold of the evening came in the last event with Govindan Lakshmanan winning the men's 5000m.
Lakshmanan, who had won a bronze in the 2015 edition, dominated the race and won handsomely in 14:54.48s and booked a ticket for next month's World Championships in London.The hosts finished Day I with seven medals.
Manpreet, who won a gold medal in the first leg of the Asian Grand Prix in China in April, could not match her Grand Prix performance of 18.86m, but in spite of coming up with four faulty throws on Thursday, she managed to strike gold once again. Her third throw of 18.28m was good enough for the gold.
India's gold medalist Manpreet Kaur flanked by Chinese athletes Guo Tianqian (Silver) and Aya Ota (Bronze) during the presentation ceremony of the Women's Shot Put event. (PTI Photo)
It was a bad day in office for defending champion Guo Tianqian of China who managed just 17.91m for silver while the bronze was won by Japan's Aya Ota (15.45m).
Two medals came from the women's long jump event with V Neena and Nayan James winning silver and bronze respectively. Although Neena managed to match gold-medal winner Vietnam's Bui Thi Thu's best jump of 6.54m, the Indian was placed second as the Vietnamese had achieved the mark in her first attempt, James' jump of 6.42m was good enough for the bronze medal.
There was more disappointment in store in field events with discus thrower Vikas Gowda and javelin thrower Annu Rani settling for bronze medals.
Indian athlete G Lakshmanan celebrates after winning the Gold medal in the men's 5000m runs during the first day of the 22nd Asian Athletics Championships at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar. (AFP Photo)
Defending champion Gowda, who won the gold in the 2013 edition in Pune with an effort of 64.90m and repeated the feat in the last edition in Wuhan, China, with a throw of 62.03m, was way below the mark on Thursday. The US-based athlete managed to improve upon his throw of 57.79m in the trials, but the best of 60.81m in his six attempts was still way below his best.
Gowda began poorly with a throw of 54.66, only to improve it to 58.96, 59.41, 60.81 and 58.98m with a false throw in the fourth attempt.
The event was won by continental record-holder Ehsan Hadadi of Iran with a throw of 64.54m and Malaysia's Irfan Muhammad claimed the silver clearing 60.96m.
Rani too failed to impress, recording her best throw of 57.32m for bronze in women's javelin throw which was won by China's Li Lingwei with a throw of 63.06m.
Sanjivani Jadhav won a bronze for India in women's 5000m with a timing of 16:00.24s but L Suriya missed out on a podium finish by a whisker ending fourth in 16:01.96.
Local girl Dutee Chand lighted up an otherwise gloomy day here with a top class finish to qualify for the women's 100m semifinals in 11.40 seconds. The Odisha girl, against whom a gender case will be heard by the Court of Arbitration in Sports (CAS) later this month, showed nerves of steel as she took a big step towards qualifying for the World Championships to be held in London next month.
National record holder Muhammed Anas along with Incheon Asian Games bronze medallist Arokia Rajiv and Amoj Jacob sailed into the finals of the men's 400m late in the evening. While Anas led the first semifinal with a timing of 45.48s, Jacob came second in the next heat in 46.40 closely followed by Rajiv in 46.41.