Chinese athletes achieve new PRs at Bird's Nest

(BEIJING, June 28) -- Chinese athletes set new personal records at the 2008 China Athletics Open Thursday morning at National Stadium. Starting from 9 a.m., eleven events that will be contested during the Olympics kicked off on Day 1 of this last Good Luck Beijing sport event. The Women's events included the 400m, 1500m, 100m hurdles, Heptathlon 100m, and Heptathlon High Jump, and the Men's events comprised the 100m, 400m, 1500m, shot put, javelin throw and long jump.

Chinese sprinters aced all but one of the heats in the Men's 100m Round 1 race. Australian Patrick Johnson led Guo Fan of China by 0.12 seconds, crossing the finish line in 10.34 seconds. Kojima Shigeyuki of Japan tied with Yin Hualong, both with a time of 10.58 seconds.

Robert Crowther took first place in the Men's Long Jump Qualifying Round (Group A) with a mark of 7.91 meters, while Mulcahy Kurt took first place in Heat 2 of the Men's 400 m race. Both men represented Australia.

In the Men's Shot Put Qualifying Round (Group A), Yao Yongguang of Fujian came in first with a mark of 18.12m, while Xu Zhongnan of Heilongjiang finished second with a personal best of 18.08m. In the Group B competition, Guo Yanxiang finished first with a mark of 18.24m.

Another athlete who achieved a personal best on Day 1 of the Athletics Open was Xu Song, who finished first in the Men's 1500m Round 1 with a time of three minutes and 47.29 seconds.

The top spots for the Men's Javelin Throw Qualifying Round Groups A and B went to Japan and New Zealand.

In the Women's events, Chinese nationals clinched the top spot in three out of four heats in the Women's 400m Round 1, achieving personal best times in each. But Tanno Asami of Japan topped everyone with a time of 52.27 seconds, leading the other firsts by at least 2.22 seconds in Heat 3 of the event.

In the Women's 100m Hurdles, Deng Ru of Sichuan finished first in Heat 1 of the first round of the Women's 100m Hurdles, holding off second place finisher Liu Jing of Sichuan by 0.03 seconds. In Heat 2, Meng Yuan from Shanghai led runner-up Wan Jindan by 0.07 seconds to finish first, while Wang Li lagged behind Ji Fangqian to finish second in Heat 3. Both Deng and Meng achieved personal bests in the race. Li Yong of Heilongjiang also achieved a personal best in the Women's 1500m Round 1 Heats, coming in first with a time of four minutes and 23.87 seconds.

The Good Luck Beijing 2008 China Athletics Open will continue Thursday evening, beginning with the Women's 100m Round 1 heats at 7 p.m. Other events scheduled for the evening include the Women's 400m Hurdles Round 1 heats, the Women's Long Jump Qualifying Round, Women's Heptathlon Shot Put and Women's 200m heats. The Men's 100m heats will begin shortly after the Women's run begins, to be followed by the 110m hurdles heats, when world record holder Liu Xiang will compete at the Bird's Nest for the first time.

The Women's 10,000m, and Discus Throw, Men's 10,000m, pole vault and shot put finals will also take place Thursday evening.