D.P. Manu, who is well placed on the 14th rung on the Road to the Paris Olympics chart, came up with another good 81.58-effort in the last round to comfortably win the javelin throw gold at the Taiwan Athletics Open in Taipei on Saturday.
Asian silver-medallist Manu, the World No. 12, who was sixth at last year’s World Championships in Budapest, had three 80-plus throws in the meet, which was a part of the World Athletics Continental Tour (bronze event).
The host’s Asian record-holder, Chao Tsun-Cheng, the first Asian to cross 90 meters (PB 91.36 meters, 2017), took the silver with 76.21 meters.
javelin throw will be a 32-man event at the Paris Olympics and nine athletes, including Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra and the other Indian, Kishore Kumar Jena, have met the automatic qualification standard of 85.50 m. Those who fail to meet the automatic standard will hope to get in through the world rankings route.
Meanwhile, V.K. Vismaya, a member of the gold-winning women’s 4x400m team at the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games, clocked a season-best 53.49s to take the women’s 400m bronze.
Sri Lankan Dissanayake Tharushi Karunarathna, the Asian Games 800m champion, took the gold in 52.48s, while her compatriot, Asian gold medallist Nadeesha Ramanayake, was fourth (53.93).
Nithya Ramraj won the women’s 100m hurdles silver with 13.23s, while Rosy Meena Paulraj, the women’s pole vault national record holder (4.21m, 2022), was a disappointing sixth with 3.75m.
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