Asian Games 2023: Tajinderpal Singh Toor successfully defends shot put title, wins India's 2nd athletics gold

India won a remarkable nine medals in athletics on Day 8 of the 2023 Asian Games to take their medal count past 50. Two of those medals turned out to be gold, with shot-putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor among those standing on top of the podium on a remarkable Sunday in China’s Hangzhou. Toor won the men’s shot put final with a best effort of 20.36m, finishing ahead of Saudi Arabia’s Mohamed Daouda A Tolo (20.18m) and China’s Yang Liu (19.97m), both of whom dished out their season-best efforts. Read | Indian medal winners in Hangzhou Asian Games This was the 28-year-old Moga native’s second Asiad gold on the trot, having won the event in Jakarta 2018 with a Games Record throw of 20.75m. Toor came up with the mighty 20.36-metre throw on his sixth and last attempt to overhaul Saudi rival Tolo’s distance of 20.18 metres, which proved way too good for the latter to overhaul in his final attempt. Besides Toor, distance runner Avinash Sable was the other Indian to win track and field gold on Sunday. Sable won the men's 3000m steeplechase event in dominant fashion, clocking 8:19.50 — a new Games Record, surpassing the timing of 8:22.79 set by Iran’s Hossein Keyhani set in Jakarta, 2018. Read | Asian Games 2023 Latest Medal Tally Such was Sable’s dominance in the event that his rivals weren’t even in the picture when he went past the finish line, with nearest competitor — Japan’s Ryoma Aoki (8:23.75) — finishing four seconds after him. Japan also bagged bronze with Seiya Sunada (8:26.47) finishing behind Aoki. With inputs from PTI