23rd Asian Athletics Championships – DOHA, April of 2019 (0)

THE DECATHLON

The 32 years old japanese Keisuke Ushiro has still shown his competitiveness with his victory in Doha with a mark overall of 7832 points. Although his main best marks were been achieved around the 2014 year (PB : 8308 points, June in 2014), he has succeeded in Doha to set a lifetime best at shot put with 15 m 32 (13 cms more than his previous PB , 15 m 19, May in 2014)

Keisuke Ushiro has matched up 4 events on 10 : 100m, 110 m H, DT and PV. Throughout the two days of competition, his performances have been more or less significantly far to his usual marks : quite close in sprint races (100m, 110 m H) and PV, further in LJ, JT, 1500 m). To note a remarkable regularity of his decathlon with a 95 % rate of homogeneity around a 787 points personal average by event in this weekend.

According to the IAAF table of cotation, his 2nd day (with 3970 points gained ) has been superior to the 1st day (3902) corresponding to a rate of 50, 49% / 49,50 % that is inusual enough to be noticed, due especially to 3 on 4 of his catched up events were in the 2nd day.

Keisuke Ushiro, on the top of the leader board, was 34 points ahead of kuwaiti Majeb Alzaid clearing a decathlon that will stay in his career, surpassing his lifetime best in 6 events (100m, SP, HJ, DT, PV, 1500m) and, logically, setting a new total best with 7838 pts (NR) almost 400 pts ahead of his previous one (7441, July of 2014) !

On the continental podium, Akikihiko Nakamura (JPN) provided many efforts during the weekend to finally set himself up to the top three with 7837 points, only one point below the silver medalist of the day. Ahihiko Nakamura surpassed the bar of the 8000 pts once (8035 points, june of 2014). His ranking board by point has been similar to those of his 2017 and 2018 decathlons. Despite his victory on the 100 m and his equal-first in the high jump, the mark stayed quite below his best marks and not cohesive enough (race of homogeneity of 88,24 % around a personal average of 784 pts)

However, Doha will stay a satisfying first stage of a long season for the two japanese teammates, able to improve the main part of their marks of the weekend.

Setting the 2econd place of the leader board after the JT, 36 pts only ahead his direct concurrent to silver, Majeb Alzaid, Akhaiko Nakamura lined-up the 1500 m, 36 pts ahead of Majeb. The japanese decathlete took out the race from the front running two laps in lead before being catched up between the 800 and the 1200 m firstly by the winner of the race, iraqi Abd Al-Sajjad Al-Suaihawi finally winner of the race in 4 mn 08' 80 '' (remarkable performance, 60 th all-time best 1500 m in a decathlon !), secondly by Majeb Alzaid himself finishing in 4 mn 15' 06'' compared to the 4 mn 21' 41'' by Akikihiko Nakamura, corresponding to... 37 pts, just enough for the iraki athlete to get silver for...1 points after two days of efforts and struggle !

Majeb Alzaid have bettered his lifetime best on 1500 m 12 ' faster than his previous record (4 mn 27' 95'', july of 2017).

Hu Yufei finished 4th of the championships with 7676 points (new PB), surpassing his best marks in 100 m and JT : he set the highest level performance of the decathlon in Doha (according to the IAAF table of cotation) with 14' 21'' in the 110 m hurdles gaining 948 points.

THE HEPTATHLON

15 competitors lined up the heptathlon and ten among them will have ended the 2nd day. The competition began with Meg Hemphill (JPN) clocking a remarkable 13' 22'' on 100 m hurdles (1033 points and the best performance of the whole heptathlon according to the IAAF table of cotation). Chinese Qingling Wang and indian Purnima Hembram surpassed the 1000 pts as well respectively with 13' 73'' and 13' 79''

Quite "discreet" on this first even (10th place despite a new pb in 14' 54''), uzbek Ekaterina Vornina, equal-first with indian Purnima Hembram in the high jump event (1 m 83) ahead of Qinling Wang (1 m 74) clocked two lifetime best with 13 m 63 at shot put (2nd victory in an event of the day) before setting 24' 94'' on the 200m.

She ended logically the first day in lead (three PB in four events) before Qinling Wang (3547) and Swapna Hembram (3521 points).

Even without any PB in an event but with some satisfying rankings in almost each of them (2nd place in the 100 m hurdles and the HJ), fourth in shot put and winner of the 200m, Qinling WANG ended Saturday second of the top leader boarding because of her regularity in the ranking linked to the global good level of her performances.

Indian Swapna Hembram set two new PBs in these events, even with some performances inferior to those of the leader : 12 m 76 at shot put and 25' 79'' on 200m. With such performances added to her very satisfying 100 m hurdles, she finished third of this first day, 55 points below to the uzbek leader and 26 points below to Qinling Wang.

The second day began with a victory of indian Swapna Barman clocking 6 m 01 in long jump, only concurrent to surpass the line of the 6 meters even if some competitors weren't far : for example her indian teammate, Purnima Hembram (5 m 99).

Ekaterina Vornina – except the long jump contest with 5 m 85, a fourth place and around 50 points lost on Purnima Hembram – has been continued to increasing her domination on the heptathlon. She clocked her fourth lifetime best of the weekend clearing 53 m 53 on javelin throw (victorious in this event and gaining 929 pts) and topped off the competition with a new victory on the 800m in 2mn 15' 26'' .

Javelin throw will have been the critical event for silver, Purnima Hembram setting 46 m 83 (2nd place in the event) compared to 38 m 87 by Qinling Wang and around 150 pts gained by the indian competitor on her chinese concurrent to silver.

No upset about the top of the leading board with the 800m won by Ekaterina Vornina (2 mn 15' 26'', second victory in event of the day), and japanese Yuki Yamasaki who finished the race very close to her (in 2mn 16' 56''), the performances of the main concurrents have been achieved between around 2 mn 20 ' and 2 mn 24 '.

The uzbek and new asian champion of heptathlon finished with 6198 points, very close to her lifetime best heptathlon best (6 212, Tashkent, 2015) before the indian Purnima Hembram (7th place at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, in Gold Coast – AUS – with 5834 points), finally silver medalist (5993 points) and the holder of bronze, chinese Qinling Wang (5829 points).

Florent Leboisselier for Decathlon 2000