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Athletics: Hup Wei on course for World Final

ee Hup Wei has risen to second from fifth in the World Athletics Tour standings for high jump.
ee Hup Wei has risen to second from fifth in the World Athletics Tour standings for high jump.

LEE Hup Wei continued his recent fine run to clinch his second international high jump title of the year at the second leg of the Asian Grand Prix in Kunshan, China on Wednesday.

The Asian champion matched his season's best of 2.24 metres for his second win in the three-leg series after taking the first leg in Suzhou on Saturday when he won clearing the same height.

To put the icing on the cake, Hup Wei earned another six points to rise to second from fifth in the World Athletics Tour standings for men's high jump with 17 points, one behind the leader Jesse Williams of the United States.

If Hup Wei can maintain his position in the top eight till the end of August, he would become the first Malaysian athlete to qualify for the World Athletics Final, to be held on Sept 12-13 in Thessaloniki, Greece.

The 22-year-old from Dengkil, Selangor has the chance to move to the top of the standings if he wins the third leg in Hong Kong tomorrow although his main priority is to qualify for August's World Championships in Berlin.
To do so, he needs to clear 2.28m as he just fell short again to finish ahead of Kazakhstan's Sergei Zasimovich (2.22) and India's Hari Sankar Roy (2.15).

Rayzam Shah Wan Sofian improved on his first leg performance to post 14.27 seconds in the men's 110m hurdles to finish fifth as China's Shi Dongpeng cruised to his second straight win in 13.46s.

It was Rayzam's best time so far after three races this year but still some way off his personal best of 13.91s.

Zaiful Zainal Abidin, however, is still far from re-capturing the form which saw him set the 400m national record in 2001 as he finished sixth in his event in 48.01s.

His personal best of 46.41s would have won him the race as the winner Liu Xiaosheng of China clocked 46.42 but he still improved by half a second on the 46.51 he timed in the first leg.

The 27-year-old Zaiful did 47.50s at the Kedah Open on May 8 for his season's best but he needs to clock 46.64 to qualify for the Laos Sea Games in December.

NST

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