Toor captures gold in shot put at Asian Indoor Athletics C'ships

ASTANA: Tajinderpal Singh Toor, India's current national record holder in men's outside shot put, clinched a gold medal with a personal indoor best of 19.49 m at the ongoing Asian Indoor Athletics Championships 2023 held in Astana, Kazakhstan on Friday.

As per the Olympics.com, he is an Asian Games gold medalist (2018), outdoor Asian champion (2019).

He won a silver medal in the last edition of the championships in Tehran back in 2018 with a throw of 19.18 m.

On Friday, Toor committed a foul in his first attempt, but made the winning throw of 19.49 m in his third and fifth attempts to clinch his first-ever gold in the championships.

Karanveer Singh was the only other athlete to cross the 19 m mark and finished second with the best throw of 19.37 m.

Ivan Ivanov of Kazakhstan came through with a throw of 18.10 to capture bronze.

Praveen Chitravel, India's national triple-jump champion clinched a silver medal with a leap of 16.98 m, a new national indoor record.

Olympian Fang Yaoqing from China won the gold with a leap of 17.20 m and South Korea's Yu Gyumin claimed bronze with 16.73m.

India's Arun AB earned a 12th-place finish among 15 competitors with a leap of 14.12 m. Swapna Barman, Asian Games gold medalist in heptathlon, clinched a silver medal in the women's pentathlon event and had an overall point tally of 4,119, another new national indoor record.

She topped the 60 m hurdles in 8.64 seconds, claimed second place in the high jump with a leap of 1.75 m and another second place in the long jump with leap of 5.91 m, fifth in shot put with a throw of 12.13 m and sixth in 800 m sprint with timings of 2:27.57 in a field featuring nine players.

India's Sowmiya Murugan came eighth with 3654 points.

Ekaterina Voronina of Uzbekistan walked away with a win in the pentathlon with 4,386 points and Yuki Yamasaki of Japan was third with 4,078 points.

Earlier in the day, India's Jeswin Aldrin made it to the final of the men's long jump with a new indoor national record of 7.93 m.

He broke the previous national record of 7.92 m set by Murali Sreeshankar and Kumaravel Prem Kumar.

Muhammed Anees Yahiya finished ninth with the best jump of 7.48 m and failed to make it to the final, which features eight men and will be held on Sunday.

Jyothi Yarraji, India's indoor national record holder in women's 60 m hurdles, failed to produce outstanding results in 60 m sprint heats and finished 10th with a timing of 7.47 s.

Archana Suseentran, competing in women's 60 m, advanced to the eight-women final after finishing fifth with a timing of 7.42 s. But she missed the podium slightly, finishing fourth (7.39 s) behind Indonesia's Valentin Vanesa Lonteng, who finished with timings of 7.37 s.

Jyothi will be in action in women's 60 m hurdles, where she has the national record.

Amlan Borgohain (men's 60 m sprint) and Shaili Singh (women's long jump) will also be in action. The championships will conclude on Sunday.