Vikas Gowda and Sahana Kumari qualify for final

Reigning Asian champion Vikas Gowda qualified for the men’s discus throw final on the fourth day of the athletics events on Wednesday.

The burly 31-year-old required only one throw to make it to the final, touching the day’s best effort of 64.32m, from among participants of both qualifying groups.

As against the qualifying mark of 63m, only two others — Victor Hogan (South Africa) and Jason Morgan (Jamaica) — could find the distance among the 12 who will figure in Thursday’s final which is set to commence at 10.30 p.m. (IST).

Sahana Kumar, the national record-holder, was a lucky qualifier in the women’s high jump, despite failing to clear the qualifying height of 1.88m. In fact, none of the 12 who were eventually picked for Friday’s final cleared this distance. The best was 1.85. Sahana, who began by clearing a height of 1.66m, cleared the next three — 1.71, 1.76 and 1.81 — in her first attempt.

Tintu Luka in semis

Tintu Luka qualified for the women’s 800m semifinals as one of four lucky losers. Tintu made the mistake of running a lead race in the third heats of the event only to lose momentum towards the end.

Tintu led the pack of seven with a blistering 58.19s in the opening lap, but had no response when attacked by Mellissa Bishop (Canada), Jessica Judd (England) and Emily Dudgeon (Scotland) towards the 600m. She was placed fifth as the runners hit the home straight before overtaking Angie Smit (New Zealand) to finish fourth in 2:02.74.

Mayookha Johny was a disappointment in the women’s long jump qualifiers, after touching 6.11m (on her first attempt) before crashing out. Mayookha went down even further — 6.00m and 5.89m — in her next two attempts to be placed eighth in Group A.