Asian Indoors: Shot putter Toor wins gold

Shot putter Tajinder Pal Singh Toor clinched a gold, India's first on the opening day of the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Friday.

Toor stood on top of the podium with a best throw of 19.49m. The other Indian in fray, Karanveer Singh secured silver with a throw of 19.37m for a 1-2 finish for the country.

Triple jumper Praveen Chitravel smashed the national indoor record during his silver medal-winning effort while long jumper Jeswin Aldrin also bettered the national mark en route to final round.

Chitravel produced a best jump of 16.98m -- which bettered Amarjeet Singh's earlier national indoor record of 16.26m (in 2008 Doha edition) -- but its was not enough for a gold medal which was won by China's Fang Yaoqing (17.20m).

Aldrin, meanwhile, bettered the earlier national indoor record of 7.92m which was in the name of Prem Kumar (2016 edition) as well as of Murali Sreeshankar (2022 World Indoor Championships).

Aldrin finished first in the qualification round. The final will be held on Sunday.

In the women's pentathlon, Swapna Barman took the silver with a total of 4119 points from five events. Ekaterina Voronina of Uzbekistan won the gold with 4386 points.