Aichi-Nagoya [Japan], September 27 : India’s Ancy Sojan clinched the silver medal in the women’s long jump final at the Asian Games, finishing with a best effort of 6.53m in Aichi-Nagoya on Sunday. 
Sojan missed out on gold by just two centimetres, with China’s Huang Yingying taking the top spot with a jump of 6.55m. Another Chinese athlete, Tan Mengyi, won bronze with 6.46m, while India’s Shaili Singh finished fourth with a best effort of 6.42m.
India’s Tejaswin Shankar clinched the bronze medal in the decathlon at the Asian Games, finishing with an impressive total of 7,934 points.
Japan’s Yuma Maruyama won the gold medal with 8,123 points, while China’s Chen Xinghua secured silver with 8,012 points.
Shankar came close to retaining the silver medal he won at the previous Asian Games, but settled for bronze after a strong overall performance. His 7,934-point total also marked an improvement over his previous Asian Games performance.
The Indian athlete had crossed the 8,000-point mark earlier this year and came close to reaching the milestone again in the decathlon at the Asian Games.
In the men’s 800m, India’s Mohammed Afsal qualified for the final after finishing third in his heat with a time of 1:47.37.
Afsal finished just 0.01 seconds behind Qatar’s Hatim Aitoulghazi, who clocked 1:47.36, while Iran’s Ali Amirian topped the heat in 1:47.26. Afsal progressed as one of the two fastest runners outside the automatic qualification spots.
Meanwhile, India’s Krishan Kumar failed to qualify for the men’s 800m final after finishing third in Heat 3. Kumar clocked 1:50.38, behind China’s Xi Xiaoheng (1:49.82) and Japan’s Nanaki Manno (1:49.91), who secured automatic qualification.
The top two athletes from each heat and the next two fastest runners advanced to the final.