Yecheon – 7 June 2023:As the curtain has rung down at Yecheon Stadium, athletes from Japan had a most profitable outing in the 20th Asian U20 Championships here as they garnered 14 gold, 4 silver and 5 bronze medals from the four days of competitions to retain the top spot in medals table for the third time in a row.
Team Japan won four golds on the final day alone as opposed to three wins by the Chinese from the 13 finals decided on Wednesday. As expected, track runners contributed to all four victories. Maseda Jumpei (1,500m) and Sonata Nagashima (5,000m) in men’s events, Jennifer Rimi Saita (200m) and Miki Hayashi (100m Hurdles) in women’s section delivered gold today. Japan tops the medal tally in the previous two editions of the championships in 2016 (Ho Chi Minh City) and 2018 (Gifu) as well.
Close calls in the Jumping Arena:
Notable among the three Chinese victories on the concluding day has come from long jumper Shu Heng. Hailing from Jilin, Heng celebrate his 19th birthday just two weeks ago and barely managed to touch the 8 metres mark only once previously while finishing fourth in the Chinese National Indoor Championships in Tianjin earlier this year.
On Wednesday evening he opened with 7.95m to lead the competition. After making two foul jumps in the next two rounds, Heng touched two identical 8.03m on his fifth and sixth try-outs to raise his personal best to a new distance and to claim the gold in his favourite event. He, however, had a little disappointment as his country-mate Weng Yongfeng’s 15-year-old meet mark of 8.05m is survived for another edition although Heng’s name will remain as the only other athlete to achieve the 8+ metres jump in the history of the championships.
There was an interesting battle for the top honours in the high jump between home favourite Choi Jin-Woo and Lo Tzu-Chieh from Chinese Taipei. In fact, the Korean jumper was the top bet among the two as he has to his credit a PB of 2.23m from last year besides winning the Asian U18 title from Al-Kuwait by clearing another notable 2.21m. On the contrary, Tzu-Chieh arrived Yecheon just with a recorded best of 2.10m to his credit.
Final day action on 07 June 2023 at Yehceon, South Korea for Asian U20 Athletics Championships. 
Final day action on 07 June 2023 at Yehceon, South Korea for Asian U20 Athletics Championships. 
Final day action on 07 June 2023 at Yehceon, South Korea for Asian U20 Athletics Championships.
The Taipei athlete started his fray at 1.95m, while Jin-Woo began his campaign only at 2.06m in that height Tze-Chieh had one failure which gave an edge to the Korean at that stage. As the height progressed further, Tze-Chieh faced some struggle and cleared 2.14m only his third attempt. Jin-Woo made a tactical decision of skipping that height after one failed attempt and went to clear the 2.16m without any difficulty. The Taiwanese took two attempts to clear 2.18m, where once again Jin-Woo tried to make another tactical move to go for the next height.
Tze-Chieh had a first attempt clearance in 2.20m whilst Jin-Woo did it on his second, which provided an advantage to the former. Both the athletes tried 2.22m but could not clear it. Thus, the drama ended in favour of Tze-Chieh with a new PB of 2.20m to his credit.
The final day also witnessed two other Asian youth champions winning silver medals in their respective events. Hong Kong’s Pak Hoi Man Chloe, the winner of 100m hurdles in Al-Kuwait, claimed silver behind Japan’s Miki Hayashi with yet another personal best time of 13.91 secs. Iran’s Mahdi Haft Cheshmeh, who had back-to-back victories in both Al-Kuwait (2022) and Tashkent (2023) youth championships, claimed silver in the hammer throw (63.96m) as the gold in that event went to Kuwait’s Mohammad Khan in 64.78m.
Brilliant Indian victories from the track:
Mention must be made of the two heart-warming wins executed by the Indian women track stars. Laxita Vinod Sandila battled it out with Akbayan Nurmamet of Kazakhstan and two top-rung Japanese runners to win the ‘metric mile’ posting a career-best 4:24.23 clocking.
Rezoana Mallick Heena (16), who won the 400m gold earlier, anchored the Indian 4 x 400m relay quarter consisting of Anushka, Riya and Kanista to a memorable win in 3:40.50 which incidentally equalled the best time by another Indian winning squad at these championships way back in 2002. However, the team narrowly misses the meet mark of 3:38.20 set by a Japanese team in the last edition in Gifu five years ago. Rezoana had a “fall” during the Mixed Relay final earlier, but was able to complete the race in third position. Today’s victory brought back the necessary confidence to the young Indian who is expected to emulate the success of her predecessors on the big stage in future.
Ram. Murali Krishnan for Asian Athletics
