“Qatar’s hurricane, Femi Ogunode” looks a strong favourite to claim 200m gold too, after winning 100m gold yesterday and setting a new Asian record of 9.91s. He competes this morning in the first heat of his group, one of five groups in the race, with the semi-finals held this afternoon and the final deciding it this evening, with the top finishers plus the next three fastest times qualifying. Our runner Femi appears to be a chronic headache for Asia’s sprinters, repeating his dominance and dashing their hopes of dethroning him as Asia’s king of speed.
Fans stay away
The absence of spectators from the Asian Athletics Championships remains a puzzling and hard-to-explain mystery, given the participation of 45 countries represented by more than 500 male and female athletes. Despite China fielding the largest delegation, most of the seats at the 70,000-capacity Wuhan Stadium remain empty, amid expectations that the weekend – tonight, Saturday, and tomorrow, Sunday, the closing day – will see a notable crowd turnout to make up for the poor attendance on the opening two days.
