Bahrain's Salwa Eid Naser in action in the 400m (© Getty Images)
World champions Salwa Eid Naser and Mariya Laskitskene produced impressive late season victories to highlight the first two days of action at the 7th CISM Military World Games in Wuhan, China.
Naser, Bahrain’s freshly-minted world 400m champion, dominated her specialty en route to a 50.15 championships record on Tuesday (22) while extending her unbeaten streak in the event to 14 straight finals.
Poland's Polina Miller and Justyna Swiety-Ersetic were a distant second and third, clocking 51.49 and 52.19, respectively.
Lasitskene topped 2.01m in Wednesday's (23) high jump competition to end her sensational 2019 campaign on a high, the 18th time in 24 competitions this season that she's jumped two metres or better. The three-time world champion had the victory sealed with a perfect scorecard through 1.94m, then asked that the bar be raised by seven centimetres. After a pair of jumps to get her bearings, Lasitskene sailed clear on her third try before calling it a season.
Ukraine's Yuliya Levchenko topped 1.92m before bowing out at 1.94m to finish second ahead of compatriot Iryna Gerashchenko who cleared 1.90m to finish third.
South American shot put record holder Darlan Romani of Brazil also ended his breakout campaign on a high note, throwing 22.36m on Tuesday, a Chinese all-comers record. Konrad Bukowiecki of Poland was second with 21.84m with Bob Bertemes of Luxembourg third with 20.66m.
Pole Paulina Guba took the women's title with a put of 18.22m.
In the women's 3000m steeplechase, 19-year-old Winfred Yavi of Bahrain, the fourth place finisher in the World Championships 24 days ago, took the title here in 9:19.24 ahead of Marusa Mismas (9:24.47) and Luiza Gega (9:26.35), the Slovenian and Albanian record holders, respectively.
Neutral athlete Sergey Shubenkov, the 2015 world champion and runner-up at the last two world championships, dominated the 110m hurdles, winning in 13.40.
Elsewhere on the track, Iran's Hassan Taftian captured the men's 100m crown in 10.24 (-0.5), ahead of Brazil's Paulo Andre Oliveira who clocked 10.32. Amaury Golitin of France clocked 10.35 for third.
The women's title went to Carrolle Zahi of France who clocked 11.36 (+0.4) to edge Brazilians Rosangela Santos (11.39) and Vitoria Rosa (11.40).
Mohamed Reda El Aaraby of Morocco took the 10,000m title in a sprint finish over Amanal Petros of Germany, 28:44.25 to 28:44.30.
Elsewhere on the infield, Hilary Kpatcha of France won the long jump with 6.54m and Alin Alexandru Firfirica of Romania won the discus with 63.88m, more than two metres clear of neutral athlete Aleksey Khudyakov (61.64m).
Neutral athlete Ilya Ivanyuk, the Doha high jump bronze medallist, won on count-back over Syria's Asian champion Majed Aldin Ghazal. Both topped 2.20m.
China's Wang Zheng, the world bronze medallist in the hammer throw, took top honours with a 69.34m best effort over Slovak record holder Martina Hrasnova who reached 68.89m.
Bob Ramsak for the IAAF
