Navpreet Singh wins silver
in shot put

India added one more silver medal to its kitty when Navpreet Singh finished second in men's shot put on the third day of the 14th Asian Athletics Championships, at the Sugathadasa stadium in Colombo, on Sunday.

Navpreet's effort of 18.97 metres on his fifth throw was second best to Qatar's Saad Bilal Mubarak's throw of 19.22 metres.

North Korea's Kim Jae Li won the bronze.

The other Indian in the final, Jaiveer Singh, finished seventh.

Otherwise, it was another lacklustre day for Indian athletes, as only two of them qualified for finals on the track.

Anand Menezes made it to the men's 200 metres final, while Sunita Dahiya qualified for the women's 800 metres final.

Middle-distance runners Kuldeep Kumar and Sanjeev Tulasidharan finished fourth and sixth respectively in the men's 1,500 metres, while Geeta Manral and Sunita Dahiya were sixth and seventh respectively in the corresponding event for women.

Clifford Joshua finished seventh in the men's 200 metres semi-finals and failed to qualify for the final, while Mukti Saha (women's 200 m), K A Jayakumar and P S Primesh (men's 800 m) and Sunita Dahiya (women's 800 m) were the other Indians who were knocked out in the semi-finals.

Qatar teenager Abdulrahman Ahmed Suleman ran a well-paced race to take the gold in the 1,500 metres while compatriot Yousuf Noor Jamal took the bronze.

Bahrain's Ramzi Rashid earned the first medal for his country, winning the silver in the event.

The 18-year-old Suleman's timing of three minutes 45.98 seconds fell well short of the Asian record of 3:32.16, standing in the name of his countryman Mohammed Suleiman.

India's Kuldeep Kumar finished fourth with a timing of 3:48.85 seconds, a good two seconds behind the bronze medallist, while compatriot M Sanjeev Tulasidharan was a distant sixth.

India's Geeta Manral and Sunita ended up the fifth and sixth in the 1,500 metres women's final which turned out to be a below par affair, with Tatyana Borisova of Kyrghyztan cantering to a gold medal at a modest pace. She clocked 4:16.27 seconds.

Svetlana Kukasheva of Kazakhstan and Japan's Miuho Nasukawa took the silver and bronze respectively.

Jagadish Kumar Bishnoi of India was fourth in the javelin with, with a distance of 79.22 metres, while Amarjeet Singh also finished fourth in the triple jump, clearing 16.12 metres.

Daichi Sawano cleared 5.40 metres in the pole vault to bag the gold, ahead of Kime Se In of Korea and Grigoriy Yegorov of Kazakhstan.

Ace sprinter Susanthika Jayasinghe of Sri Lanka stormed her way into the women's 200 metres final to stay on course for a her second gold medal, having won the 100 metres on Saturday.

China's Liu Xiang stood out with a smooth victory in the high hurdles for men, while women athletes from his country made it a memorable day for them, taking three gold medals.

Li Rongxiang capped a fine day for China by throwing the javelin the farthest among men.

China tops the medals tally with nine gold, three silver and one bronze.

ri Lanka had something to cheer about as Sriyani Kulawansa earned a silver, finishing just behind Yuonne Kanazawa of Japan in the 100 metre hurdles.

Chinese women went home with the gold in the javelin, triple jump and the 20 km walk, but there were no records on a day of mediocre performances.

Gao Kelian and Jian Xingli made it a gold-silver combination for China in the 20 km walk, while compatriots Ma Ning and Xue Juan came with another one-two double in javelin. Wu Lingmei's triple jump of 13.83 metres edged out Uzbekistan's Mariya Sokava.