Off the wire
• Leading goal scorers of French Ligue 1  • PSG owner rules out departures of Ibra, Pastore, Cavani  • French Ligue 1 result  • Britain explores business opportunities in Cuba  • Feature: Mexico seeks to breed new generation of giant pandas with China's help  • 1st LD Writethru: Togo's Faure Gnassingbe re-elected president  • French Ligue 1 standings  • Corinthians seek Paulinho deal  • Former Selecao midfielder Carvalho joins Botafogo  • U.S. says Iranian troops board cargo ship after warning shots  
You are here: 　 Home

Asian top sprinters Zhang, Kiryu expected to face each other in May

Xinhua, April 29, 2015 Adjust font size:

China's top sprinter Zhang Peimeng is expected to square it off against Japanese teenager Yoshihide Kiryu in May's IAAF world challenge series in Kawasaki, Japan.

Although Qatar's Nigeria-born Femi Ogunode became the fastest man on the continent in last year's Asian Games when he clocked 9.93 seconds in the 100 meters, the duel for the best Asian-born sprinter is yet to be settled.

In the meantime, both Zhang and Kiryu are looked upon to beat the 10 second barrier as the Asian-born athletes have worked hard for years to improve Japanese Koji Ito's 10-second record set in 1998 Asian Games.

Zhang, 28, will warm up for the event as he runs a 200m in China's national grand prix in Jinan on Wednesday.

He will try to recover his best form which brought him a personal best of 10.00 seconds in 2013 Moscow world championships.

Kiryu also jumped into the spotlight in 2013 when he equaled the world junior record of 10.01 in Hiroshima as a 17-year-old high school student.

Last month, he ran a wind-assisted unofficial 9.87 at a meet in Austin, Texas. Endi