Asia’s fastest man due for 3As

Asia’s track king Al Safaar Jamal of Saudi Arabia will be one of the men to watch in the 15th Asian Athletics Association Championships which fires off Sept. 20-23 at the Rizal Memorial track and field stadium.

Although his time of 10.43 seconds in the century dash in the 14th edition held last August in Colombo, Sri Lanka is .21 seconds off the 10.22 record held by Qatar’s Talal Mansoor in the 1993 Manila tournament, Jamal has been closing in on that mark in the Asian Games held two months later in South Korea.

The Saudi clocked 10.24 seconds to win the gold, stunning fancied Asahara Nobuharu of Japan (10.29), Chen Haijian of China (10.34) and Chernovol Gennadiy (10.35) of Kazakhstan.

Patafa president Go Teng Kok said Jamal and the other competitors are just some of the talented tracksters expected to see action in the event.

Gennadiy is another interesting sprinter who has prominently figured in the regional sportsfests. Aside from finishing second to Jamal in Colombo in the century dash, he ruled the Sri Lanka 200 meters event at a rather slow 20.73 compared to the existing record of 20.41 held by Korea’s Jang Jae Keun established in Jakarta in 1985. But he was beaten by Japan’s Suetsugu Shingo in the Busan Asiad, who took the gold in 20.38 seconds to the latter’s much-improved 20.57.

Koji Ito of Japan holds both the Asian Games records in the 100-m and 200-m with a 10-second flat mark in the former and a time of 20.25 in the latter he posted in the 1998 Bangkok quadrennial tournament. Ito is already semi-retired but his reactivation is not far-fetched and his presence in the event would surely boost the competition.

In the 400-m, Kuwait’s I-Shammari Fawzi is the man to beat having ruled both the Triple A’s and the Busan Asiad events. In Sri Lanka, the Kuwaiti runner timed 45.21 and improved to 44.93 in the 2002 Asian Games. In both events, he nipped Saudi Al Bishi Hamdan.

The long distance races were all ruled by the Qataris in the Colombo stage but in Busan it was a different story. Ramzi Rashid of Bahrain ruled the 1500-m, Al Otaibi Makhid of Saudi Arabia won both 5,000-m and 10,000-m runs while Korea’s Lee Bong Ju topped the marathon event.

Only the 3,000-m steeplechase remained in Qatar’s possession as Saifeldin Khamis Abdullah retained it with a slower time of 8:30.52. The Qatari ruled this race in Sri Lanka with an impressive clocking of 8:16.0.

Southeast Asian Games athletics giant Thailand ruled the 4x100-m relay in Sri Lanka and in Busan in an Asian Games record of 3:01.70.