Report21 Mar 2019


Ge smashes Chinese 60m record in Hangzhou

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China's Ge Manqi after winning the 60m at the National Indoor Grand Prix Final in Hangzhou (© Tony Dou)

Ge Manqi produced the surprise headline performance at the National Indoor Grand Prix Final in Hangzhou when she smashed the Chinese indoor 60m record with 7.10 on Tuesday (19), the opening day of competition.

The 21-year-old had gone undefeated on the domestic circuit throughout the indoor season, setting PBs of 7.33 and 7.26 in two different competitions last month. She improved on her best again in Hangzhou, clocking 7.19 in the heats before chopping another 0.09 off her best with 7.10 in the final.

Her winning mark took 0.07 off the previous national record, set by Wei Yongli in 2016. It also puts her fourth on the 2019 world indoor 60m list.

Most of Ge’s previous successes have come as part of the national 4x100m team. Aged 18 at the time, she ran on the third leg at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and narrowly missed out on making the final by the narrowest of margins. Last year she finished second in the 4x100m at the Asian Games and third at the Continental Cup.

Coached by Liu Zhaoxu, Ge is based in Fujian Province in southeast China. Although she had been working hard throughout the winter, she had expected to make progress later in the year, so her indoor results came as a pleasant surprise to both Ge and her coach. They will soon head to Beijing as part of their preparation for the IAAF World Relays Yokohama 2019.

World champion Gong Lijiao made her sole indoor appearance of 2019 and comfortably won the women’s shot put with 19.14m.

Li Ling won the women’s pole vault with 4.60m and went on to try to break her own Asian indoor record with 4.71m but had three misses.

On the second day of action, Wang Shaojie broke the Chinese indoor record when winning the men’s 1500m in 3:45.36, breaking a mark that had stood for 22 years. Runner-up Zong Qinghua also finished inside the old standard, clocking 3:45.82.

Asian Games silver medallist Zhang Yaoguang won the men’s long jump with 8.00m, while Asian champion Zhu Yaming won a close triple jump contest with 16.65m.

Jon Mulkeen for the IAAF with assistance from Tony Dou

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