Su Xinyue set pb in Diamond League

Shanghai diamond league and national GP were onstage this week.

In Shanghai, Su Xinyue, from Hebei, national champion and Worlds finalist last year, set a pb at 64.45m in women's discus, finishing 4th behind Sandra Pekovic and improving her pb from 64.27m, the winning mark at the Nationals last year. After retirement of Li Yanfeng, Olympic bronze medalist in 2012, Chinese women's discus has seen a drop in level as there has not been anyone stepping up to 65m region. There is young Gu Siyu, who threw 67.86m in 2013 but she has never been able to replicate such form after that. Tan Jian, who has been on 64.45m and finished 6th in 2011 and 2013 Worlds, also has been quiet after winning 2013 National Games over Li. Su's steady improvement marks a potential top 8 in Rio Olympics.

Highlights have been on men's sprinters.  Su Bingtian and Zhang Peimeng, the top Chinese sprinters, sat out the individual races due to minor injuries while the young Mo Youxue and Xie Zhenye were in the main race in 100m. The results were a little disappointing as Xie, 4th in men's 60m Worlds indoor recently, claimed he couldn't hear the gun and finished 8th at 10.31s while Mo, former world youth champion in 100m, pulled his hamstring during the race and finished last at 10.66s. The best result achieved by Chinese was Tang Xingqiang from Fujian, who won the first race in 10.30s. Due to Mo's injury, Mo was substituted by Chen Shiwei, from Fujian for Chinese men's 4x100m relay team, which won a surprising silver at Worlds last year. They (Chen, Xie, Su and Zhang) won at 38.71s over Jamaican team.

The sole Chinese win was men's long jump by Gao Xinlong at 8.14m with a field including Fabrice Lapirre and Jeff Henderson. His team mate, Wang Jiannan, world bronze medalist, Zhang Yaoguang and Huang Changzhou finished 5th-7th with distances of 7.96m, 7.87m and 7.84m. Wang was just recovered from a minor injury so he is expected to jump better in the upcoming competitions. Veteran, Li Jinzhe, will be likely to start his first competition in Beijing challenge next week.

Another popular event, men's high jump, saw Zhang Guowei and Wang Yu finished 2nd and 3rd behind Bordarenko on count back, all at the same height of 2.28m. The Chinese duo already jumped 2.33m in Kawasaki a week ago showing good consistency.

Zhao Qinggang, Asian record holder in men's javelin with a superb 89.15m set in 2014, finished 8th with a modest 75.92m. He has been plagued with injuries after his Asian Games in 2014 and only competed sparingly in 2015. National record holder in pole vault, Xue Changrui, did not start his first competition well only achieving 5.40m.

There were a few quality performances from Chinese women's distance runners: Zhao Jing, women's 800m bronze medalist in 2014 Asian Games, ran a 4:09.28 in front of her home crowd and Zhang Xianqian, from Zhejiang, ran a pb at 4:10.32. After achieving pb at 9:28 about a week ago, Zhang Xinyan repeated her performance with 9:29.52 (9th)

Other highlights include Xie Wenjun at 13.34s in men's 110m hurdle (3rd) with seemingly stagnant progress, Yao Jie achieving seasonal best in men's pole vault (5.62m), Liu Yang's 19.30m in men's shot put, Wei Yongli's 23.29s in women's 200m (5th) and Chinese women's 4x100m team winning at 43.04.

In National GP held in Zhengzhou from 12-14th May, the results were mostly lackluster. Notable results include men's 1500m by Xu Pengcheng at 3:45.76, a domestic best in 2016, men's long jump by Zhong Peifeng at 7.92m, women's 400m hurdles by Wang Yan at 57.24s, men's 400m hurdles by Shang Shuo 50.32s. Furthermore, Liu Ruihuan, who has qualified for women's marathon in Rio, ran a quick 32:15.40 in women's 10,000m and her chaser, Zheng Zhiling, was at 32:57.66.

Sun Yang's Weibo speech

In China, what Sun Yang is trying to show to the public is the positive side of him even though he has been through so many adversities. On 5/5, he post a Weibo thanking a bunch of people that helped him in the hard times. In the end, it seems more like a PR speech. However, he mentioned a lot of people except the controversial figures like Dr. Ba Zhen and his Australian coaches who should have helped him a lot in the past. If he did, his speech would sound a little more sincere. The most controversial one he mentioned is Park Tae Hwan, who will not be swimming in Rio. It is difficult to image how he can brush aside all the news around him so effortlessly like his doping and his unsolved mystery before 1500m free final.


As for his doping, he did not know the drug was updated in the latest banned list at the time and he took it for his heart problem. Actually, did he ever show any medical evidence (or 3rd party examination) to prove that his drug administration is really necessary? Now, he cannot take the drug. Does he mean that he needs to take another drug to control his condition? If not, is his condition going to deteriorate? If he is taking other drug, what is it? And is it going to be on the next list? Or they will switch a new drug once the old drug is added in? Before 1500m free final, a few events happened: a brawl with Brazilian female swimmer, locker room argument and last-minute pull out from the final. The brawl in the end was actually never resolved. Finally, there are still question marks hanging in the air.     

Zhang Xinyan ran 9:28.54 at women's 3000m steeplechase

In Luoyang, a low-key national meet was held for distance running on May 6 and 7. The first event of women's 3000m steeplechase saw Zhang Xinyan achieved an Olympic qualifying mark (9:45.00) at 9:28.54, less than 2 seconds off the national record. Zhang ran 4:16.38 at 1500m on the next day. Li Zhixuan from Inner Mongolia won women's 5000m at 15:41.19 on day 1. One of the rising young runners, Zheng Zhiling from Shanghai, ran 32:56.66 at 10,000m on day 2. In recent first leg of National GP, Wang Chunyu, world youth championships medalist, ran 2:02, which was not far from the Olympic qualifying mark.