QATAR QUARTET BREAKS LONG-STANDING ASIAN 4X400M RECORD

Qatar’s team included 400m hurdles champion Abderrahman Samba, who got his team off to a good start with a 44.5 lead-off leg. Mohamed Nasir Abbas and Mohamed El-Nour maintained the team’s lead before individual 400m champion Abdalelah Haroun anchored the team to victory in 3:00.56.

The quartet not only obliterated the Qatari record of 3:02.50 set in 2015, but they also took 0.2 off the Asian record of 3:00.76 set by Japan at the 1996 Olympic Games.

India clocked 3:01.85 to secure the silver medal from Japan, who recorded 3:01.94.

The pre-race favourites for the women’s title, Bahrain, suffered from a poor first exchange and could not quite get back on terms with India.

The team of Hima Das, Poovamma Machettira, Saritaben Gayakwad and Vismaya Velluva won in 3:28.72, contributing to India’s fifth successive victory in the women’s 4x400m at the Asian Games.

Bahrain, with a team that included world silver medallist Salwa Eid Naser, settled for silver in 3:30.16, while Vietnam took bronze in 3:33.32.

Three members of Bahrain’s 4x400m team, though, had raced in the 4x100m earlier in the evening and came away with the gold medal. The quartet of Iman Essa Jasim, Edidiong Odiong, Hajar Alkhaldi and Naser won in a Games record of 42.73, smashing the national record in the process.

Naser, Bahrain’s anchor, caught China’s Yuan Qiqi in the closing stages. China took silver in 42.84 while Kazakhstan finished a distant third in 43.82.

In the men’s 4x100m, an experienced Japanese quartet of Ryoto Yamagata, Shuhei Tada, Yoshihide Kiryu and Aska Cambridge won comfortably in 38.16. Indonesia took advantage of the home crowd’s support to smash their national record and defeat defending champions China, 38.77 to 38.89.