Guo Tianqian in action in the shot put (© Getty Images)
The 2014 Chinese Junior Championships in Lishui, Zhejiang province, underlined the medal hopes of this nation at next month’s IAAF World Junior Championships in Eugene, USA, with some outstanding performances in several field events across the three days of the event, which finished on Sunday (22).
Many of these medal hopes have already proven themselves by winning medals at previous editions of the IAAF World Youth Championships.
As usual, there are Chinese women throwers reaching for the top podium.
The leading junior in the world in the shot put, 2011 world youth champion Guo Tianqian, easily won her event with a 17.51m toss. Her personal best and world junior-leading mark from this season is 17.84m.
In the discus, 2011 world youth silver medallist Liang Yan came close to her season’s best with a winning throw of 55.90m. World youth and Asian junior champion Xie Yuchen was second with 53.52m, a couple of metres shy of her best mark this year (55.65m).
Both discus throwers are close to the top of the 2014 world junior lists and will be looking for medals at Oregon 2014.
Asian junior triple jump champion and world youth silver medallist Wang Rong did not compete, but Asian junior long jump champion Li Xiaohong completed a horizontal jumps double. After winning the long jump with 6.14m on Friday she bounded out to 13.53m in the triple jump. She has an outdoor triple jump best of 13.70m this season and has jumped 14.06m indoors in 2013.
There will be some Chinese medal hopes in the men’s jumps as well in Eugene.
In the absence of Asian junior champion Fang Yaoqing, the triple jump was won by Wu Lianglin with a personal best of 16.26m. In the long jump, Asian junior champion and 2011 world youth champion Lin Qing won with 7.75m, having jumped a personal best of 7.99m in Chinese Taipei to win his continental title a week ago.
Perhaps surprisingly, the pole vault has become one of the stronger men’s event in China in recent years and Huang Bokai is continuing this tradition.
He won the silver at the 2013 World Youth Championships and gold at the Asian Juniors in 2014 a week ago and cleared a 5.40m personal best to win at this meeting. Huang is in equal second place on the world junior lists this season.
Wang Guozhong, fourth on the world junior list with 50.61 this season, won the 400m hurdles in 50.92 to provide arguably the top mark on the track. He was followed home by world youth silver medallist Wang Yang, who clocked 51.10 for second place.
Mirko Jalava for the IAAF
