With China enjoying huge success at the Asian Games, where the athletics action ended just nine days ago, it was always clear that many of the top athletes gaining success there would not appear at the National Championships on 9-12 October just more than a week later.
The city of Suzhou, located in Jiangsu province, just 85km east of Shanghai, hosted the four-day meeting. Some of the gold medallists from Inchon appeared to do just enough to win, while some of the Asian Games medallists were surprisingly beaten by athletes who did not even compete in Inchon.
With the two 5.80m pole vaulters Yang Yangcheng and Xue Changrui not competing, 20-year-old Zhang Wei equalled his 5.60m personal best for the win. Yao Jie was second with the same height, also an equal PB, and 18-year-old Huang Bokai was third with 5.40m, just five centimetres shy of the PB he set at this year’s World Junior Championships. more
