The Hong Kong squad in the men's 4x100 metres relay event at the Inter-City Athletics Challenge at Siu Sai Wan yesterday were bitterly disappointed to be disqualified after crossing the line in first place. The final baton change was adjudged to have been transferred outside of the designated zone between To Wai-lok and Chiang Wai-hung, the 100m national record holder.
'I'm disappointed because I thought we'd won it,' said Chiang, who stormed up the home straight stride for stride with Singapore's anchor runner, Shameer.
After two days of intense competition, a record finally fell in the last stage of the longest event, the decathlon. Filipino athlete Roberto Fresnido set a new mark of 6,441 points in the men's competition to narrowly eclipse the former mark of 6,413, which was set in 1996 by Hong Kong's Chang Yu-ho. Fresnido sealed his new record with a win in the 1,500m in a time of five minutes, 14.05 seconds.
A record also fell in the women's heptathlon, where Dong Wang-wei from Anhui Province led from the 100m hurdles on Saturday through to the 800m yesterday afternoon to set an new all comers record, and crashed through the 5,000-point barrier with 5,129 points. Dong's new record broke the former all comers record set in this competition last year by Vietnam's Ngu Yen Thi Thu Cuc.
Mikaela Santos won the women's pole vault on a countback against Taiwan's Yu Fang-ting after a blemish-free record, having cleared all heights up to the winning mark of 3.2m at the first attempt. Yu had failures at all heights before clearing them at the second attempt, which ultimately cost her the gold medal.
Blustery conditions presented the sprinters with difficult conditions, but a changing of the guard could now be beckoning after 'sprint queen' Wan Kin-yee, 30, suffered her first defeat by a local athlete when Chan Ho-yee placed fourth in the 100m, just one hundredth of a second ahead of Wan.
