China's Lyu renews meet record of women javelin at Shanghai Diamond League

Lyu Huihui of China broke her own meet record under heavy rain to win the women's javelin title at the IAAF Diamond League Shanghai meet on Saturday.

The 28-year-old opened the competition with a first round effort of 64.39 metres. She went on to improve her mark to 66.85m in the third round and bowed out with a 66.26m to wrap up the victory, reports Xinhua news agency.

Lyu improved the previous meet record of 64.08m set by herself in 2015 by a margin of 2.77 metres.

It was also her best performance of the current season, but was still shy from her Asian record of 67.59m registered when winning the silver at the World Championships in London last summer.

Marcelina Witek of Poland took the second place at 64.49m, followed by Eda Tugsuz of Turkey who finished 63.20m.

Meanwhile, reigning world champion Gong Lijiao of China hurled a season best of 19.99 metres for all women shot putters to win here.

The 29-year-old Gong, the winner of the Diamond League trophy last year, beat a loaded field with five over-19m throws. Her winning mark came from the second round and in fact each of the five valid marks was good enough to seal the title for the local star.

"My plan was to break 20m today but unfortunately I was just one centimeter short of the mark," Gong said. "I probably will not join every Diamond League race this season, but I will try to get more points in each race I compete in."

Danniel Thomas-Dodd of Jamaica took the silver at 18.70m and America's Raven Saunders finished third at 18.63.

Defending world indoor champion Anita Marton failed to compete to her best level and only settled for the sixth place at 18.16.

Four-time world champion Valerie Adams of New Zealand finished eighth at 18.01.

--IANS

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