Fukushi obliterates field in women's 10,000 metres

Dec 8, 2006, 17:25 GMT

Doha, Qatar - Japan's Kayoko Fukushi ran away with the women's 10,000 metre title at the 15th Asian Games on Friday.

Fukushi, who earlier this year won the 10,000 metres at the Grand Prix meet in Helsinki, obliterated the field over the distance, as she won in a time of 31:29.28 minutes, beating Bahrain's Kareema Saleh Jasim by nearly a minute.

African-born Jasim won the silver in a sprint finish from Fukushi's team-mate Hiromi Ominami.

In the men's hammer throw Dilsho Nazarov from Tajikistan stunned the pre-competition favourite Ali Zenkawi from Kuwait, who was expected to win the gold in the absence of Olympic champion Koji Murofushi, who had to pull out with an injury.

Zenkawi threw 73.14m at his second attempt and was leading until Nazarov managed a throw of 74.43m at his fifth attempt - it was his only throw over 70m.

Third place went to Japan's Hiroaki Doi with 69.45m.

It was his country's first-ever gold medal at the Asian Games.

In the women's hammer throw world junior record holder Zhang Wenxiu broke her own Asian record with a throw of 74.14m to win by more than 9m from her team-mate Gu Yuan.

Masumi Aya from Japan won the bronze medal with a throw of 60.95m.

The two triathlon gold medals - an event that is being held for the first time at the Asian Games - went to China and Kazakhstan.

In the women's event Wang Hongni won ahead of the Japanese pair of Ai Ueda and Akiko Sekine, while Dmitriy Gaag won the men's event with a total time of 1:50:53.14 hours. Hong Kong's Lee Chi Wo was second, followed by another Kazakh, Daniil Sapunov.

The final athletics gold medal on Friday is for the 3,000m steeplechase.