Asia’s fastest men play catch up on world stage
KUCHING: Asians eyeing sporting glory on the world stage have found it in sports such as badminton and table tennis.
But it’s an uphill ba le when it comes to the blue riband event on the running track.
The Olympic men’s 100m gold medal or the title of world’s fastest man has become the property of the US and Jamaica in recent times.
The last Asian athlete to qualify for the Olympic men’s 100m final was Japan’s Takayoshi Yoshioka who finished 6th in 10.7sec at the 1932 Los Angeles Games!
But whether it is the Olympic Games every four years or the biennial World Athletics Championships, Asia’s speed demons have not given up the chase.
Qatar, China and Japan have taken the lead in producing Asia’s fastest men.
A total of 143 men around the world have timed below 10.00secs in the 100m since the feat was first achieved in 1968.
Since 2007 eight of them have emerged from Asia.
But to date none have qualified as the top eight to compete in an Olympic 100m final.
Qatar has aimed to deliver by importing talents from Nigeria.
It succeeded in producing the first from Asia to go below 10sec when Samuel Francis clocked 9.99 to win the 100m at the Asian Athletics Championships in July 2007.
The naturalised Qatari went as far as the semi-finals of the 2008 Olympic Games only to be disqualified a er testing positive for a performanceenhancing substance.
He suffered from lacklustre performances in the later years.
Next came Femi Ogunode who swept both the 100 and 200m at the 2014 Asian Games and 2015 Asian Championships.
2015 was his peak when he set Asian records for the 100m (9.91) and 200m (19.97), the first sub 20sec run by an athlete representing an Asian country.
The best he could do on the world stage, however, was finishing 7th in the 200m final of the 2015 World Championships.
Two men from China have gone below 10sec in the 100m.
Su Bingtian emerged as the fastest man at the 2011 and 2013 Asian Championships as well as the 2018 Asian Games.
He qualified for but finished last in the final of the 2015 and 2017 World Championships.
Su became the first Asian native to go under 10 when he clocked 9.99sec in May 2015.
He failed to enter the final at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games but ran a personal best (PB) of 9.91sec in 2018 to equal Femi’s
Asian record.
Xie Zhenhe, who is four years younger, ran
9.97sec in
June 2018 to become the second
Chinese to go sub-10.
He has not looked back since.
The following year he clocked a stunning 19.88sec in the 200m, breaking Femi’s
Asian record and becoming the first native Asian to dip under 20.
Having found his niche in the 200m he won the Asian Championships and finished 7th at the World Championships final in 2019.
In July 2018, Oman-born Barakat al Harthi became Asia’s sixth sub-10 man when he was timed at 9.97sec.
But he has accomplished li le apart from grabbing the bronze at the 2010 Asian Games and 2013 Asian Championships.
His career was also marred by a suspension following a positive test for a banned substance in 2011.
Samuel Francis retired in 2016 when he was 29.
Age is also fast catching up on Barakat (now 32), Su (31) and Femi (29).
That would leave 27-year-old Xie and three younger Japanese to ba le on as Asia’s best prospects on the world stage. 25-year-old Yoshihide Kiryu did a 9.98 in Sept 2017 to become the first in Japan’s history to go below 10sec. Last year, he won the 100m at the Asian Championships and made it to the semi-finals of the World Championships.
Yuki Koike (9.98 in July 2019) shares the same age and accolade as a semi-finalist at the 2019 World Championships.
He ran a PB of 20.23sec to win the 200m at the 2018 Asian Games.
The youngest and perhaps most exciting of the Japanese trio is Abdul Hakim Sani Brown. He first drew a ention when he competed as a 16-year-old at the 2015 World Junior (Under-18) Championships.
He swept to victory in both the 100m (10.28) and 200m (20.34sec).
Hakim, whose father is Ghanaian, qualified for and finished 7th in the 200m final of the 2017 World Championships. He finally dipped below 10 in the 100m with a 9.99sec run in May 2019 and has a PB of 20.08sec in the 200m.
A promising indicator of progress for Asia’s fastest men is that China and Japan are creating waves in the 4x100m relay on the world stage.
At the World Championships China won the silver in 2015, was 4th in 2017 and 6th in 2019 (establishing China’s current national record of 37.79sec).
The Chinese quartet finished 4th at the 2016 Olympic Games when Japan snatched the silver.
The Japanese also grabbed the silver in 2008 and was 4th in 2012.
At the World Championships the Japanese squad delivered the bronze in 2017 and 2019 (creating the current Asian record of 37.43sec).
Asia welcomed its second world junior sprint champion when Indonesia’s Muhd Lalu Zohri won the 2018 title in 10.18sec.
Two junior world champions in three years is perhaps another indication that the continent could be closing the gap in pursuit of the world’s best.
Few would bet against Lalu becoming the first man in Southeast Asia to dip below 10sec.
Last year the youngster proved he could already match the big boys stride for stride.
In April 2019, he improved to 10.13sec finishing second to Kiryu at the Asian Championships.
A month later, he finished third behind former Olympic champion Justin Gatlin (10.00) and Kiryu (10.01) with a new PB of 10.03sec at the IAAF Seiko Grand Prix Meet.
The postponement of the Tokyo Olympics by a year can only benefit the fast improving Indonesian.
He will turn 21 in July 2021 when he lines up with Qatari, Chinese and Japanese counterparts to take on the Americans and Jamaicans on the world’s biggest stage.