Bahrain's Shitaye Eshete stars on Day 1

PUNE: Bahrain's Shitaye Eshete dished out a stellar show in distance running as she snatched the women's 10000m event with a meet record to match at the 20th Asian Athletics Championships on Wednesday.
The Ethiopia-born defending champion improved on her 2011 Kobe timing as she powered home in 32 minutes 17.29 seconds on a drizzly evening at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex.
The 23-year-old, a disciple of the legendary Tolosa Kotu, the former coach of Kenenisa Bekele, finished 22 seconds ahead of Alia Saeed of United Arab Emirates.Japan's Ayumi Hagiwara collected the bronze as she came home in 32:47.44.
Eshete's timing might have been below her personal best of 30:47.25 but such was her pace that she even lapped home hope Preeja Sreedharan, who came home fourth in 33:41.97.
Om Prakash Karhana opened the medal count for India by bagging the bronze in the men's shot put with a throw of 19.45 meter.
Saudi Arabia's two-time Asian Games gold medallist Sultan Abdulmajeed Al-Hebshi, trailing the home favourite after the first three throws, took the lead in the fourth with a heave of 19.60m and consolidated that with 19.68m in the next to win gold.
Chinese Taipei's Chang Ming-Huang also surpassed the Indian for the silver when he hurled the weight to 19.61m.
Om Prakash came with in sniffing chance of the coveted metal, and thereby a berth in the World Championships next month, when he came up with 19.45m in his second attempt. But he failed to improve on it and had to settle for third place.
"I'm not satisfied with my performance as I was aiming for the gold and qualifying for the World Championships," Om Prakash, who trains in Hungary, said. "I was in good form but the heavy rain spoiled my plans.
I was looking for the one good throw to qualify but it never came," said the 26-year-old who now hopes to compete in a few meets in Europe in an effort to qualify for Moscow.
In women's long jump, defending champion Mayookha Johny, struggling with fitness issues, was far below her best but still managed to snatch the bronze with an effort of 6.30m.
Krishna Poonia, another home athlete grappling with poor form, missed out on a medal as she finished fourth in the women's discus with 55.01m.