Xie Wenjun on his way to winning the 110m hurdles in Jinhua (© Organisers)
Sprint hurdler Xie Wenjun and rising long jump talent Gao Xinglong were among the nine Chinese winners in Jinhua as the host nation won the inaugural Friendship Meeting in which China took on Japan and Korea on Sunday (6).
Olympic semi-finalist Xie – winner of the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Shanghai earlier this year – enjoyed an easy victory in the 110m hurdles, winning comfortably in 13.55, aided by a 2.5m/s tail wind.
Gao led a Chinese 1-2 in the long jump. Team-mate Tang Gongchen, the Asian bronze medallist, jumped 8.06m in the first round to land just three centimetres shy of his recent PB. 20-year-old Gao responded in the next round with a PB of 8.18m and then backed it up with a wind-assisted 8.12m in the fourth round.
Pan Xinyue smashed his lifetime best to win the 100m. His best before last weekend was 10.55, but he took a third of a second off that to win in 10.22 (1.0m/s). Korean champion Kim Gook-Young finished a close second in 10.24, just 0.01 away from his national record.
China also swept all of the women’s field events, including a win in the triple jump from former world junior and world youth medallist Deng Lina, who jumped a season’s best of 13.82m.
Jin Minsub, the 2009 world youth champion, provided one of two Korean victories by equalling his PB of 5.65m in the pole vault.
Korea’s other win came in the men’s 4x100m, in which they broke the national record with 38.74 to finish a quarter of a second ahead of China.
There was another Korean record in the women’s 4x400m (3:39.91), but they had to settle for third place behind Japan and China. Japan won in 3:32.46.
Japan won both one-lap races with Manami Kira taking the women’s 400m hurdles in 56.79 and Naoki Kobayashi winning the men’s 400m in 45.79, smashing through the 46-second barrier for the first time in his career.
Xiao Tian, vice minister of General Administration of Sport of China (GASC) attended the opening ceremony. IAAF council member and AAA senior vice president Du Zhaocai and Jinhua vice mayor Lin Danjun gave speeches at the ceremony.
The three nations will make this competition an annual one and will take turns to host it. Next year’s edition will be held in the Japanese city of Sapporo.
Jon Mulkeen and organisers for the IAAF
