India's Tajinderpal Singh Toor set a new meet record to clinch the gold medal in the men's shot put event at the 18th Asian Games here on Saturday.
Toor hurled the iron ball a distance of 20.75 metre to smash the previous Games record.
The previous mark of 20.57 metre was set by Aboulmajeed Alhabashi of Saudi Arabia at the 2010 Asiad in Guangzhou, China.
China's Liu Yang was a distant second with his season's best throw of 19.52m. Ivan Ivanov of Kazakhstan took bronze with 19.40m.
This is the eighth gold medal for India in men's shot put in the history of the Asian Games.
Toor dominated the final right from the start but reserved his best for the very last attempt.
The tall, burly 23-year-old from Punjab had taken the lead with an effort of 19.96 metre in his first attempt. He threw 19.15 in his second attempt but fouled his third throw.
The fourth attempt saw the Indian clock yet another 19.96 metre before he simply blew away the competition with his last attempt.
The other Indian athletes also proved their mettle. Muhammed Anas Yahiya entered the men's 400 metre final in style, finishing at the top of the standings in both qualification stage and the semi-finals.
Anas won Heat 1 with a time of 45.63 seconds which was also the fastest time in the heats. He went on to clock the overall fastest time in the semi-finals, winning Semi-final 2 with an even quicker time of 45.30 seconds.
Rajiv Arokia, the other Indian in the fray, also entered the final. The Tamil Nadu athlete was second in Heat 4 with 46.82 which handed him the overall eighth position in the qualification stage. Arokia was second in Semi-final 1 to be sixth overall.
Meanwhile, teen sensation Hima Das and Nirmla entered the final of the women's 400m competition.
Hima clocked a time of 51.00 seconds to finish second in Heat 1 behind Salwa Naser of Bahrain. The 18-year-old from Assam also took the overall second position in the qualification stage.
Salwa registered 50.86 seconds to create a new Games record which also handed her the overall top position in the qualification stage.
Nirmla won Heat 3 with a time of 54.09 seconds. Zenghuan Tong of China finished second with 54.29 seconds to become the other automatic qualifier from that heat.
--IANS
ajb/nir
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