India's campaign in the showpiece athletics event of the Asian Games began on a lacklustre note with Hardeep Kaur finishing sixth in the women's hammer throw at the Khalifa Stadium in Doha on Friday.
Hardeep hurled the hammer to a distance of 56.41 mt to hardly pose any threat to her opponents on a day when some of the athletes qualified to the final of their respective events.
China's Wenxiu Zhang clinched the gold medal in hammer throw with a Asian Games record throw of 74.14 , improving upon his previous record of 73.24 m established in Changsha (China) in 2005. Compatriot Yuan Gu (63.13) took the silver while the bronze went to Japan's Masumi Aya (62.67).
India's star heptathlete Soma Biswas was in the third position after the completion of four events in women's heptathlon with a total of 3291, 298 points behind the leader Kazakhstan's Olga Rypakova. Kazakhstan's Irina Naumenko was in the second psotion with 3331 points.
Another Indian heptathlete J J Shobha was in the sixth position with a total of 3201 after the first day of competitions.
Preeja Sridharan produced a personal best timing of 33:48.45 as she finished fifth in the women's 10,000 m run held amidst gusty winds and chilly conditions.
Preeja, who had won the gold medal in the SAF Games in Colombo this year in the 5000 event, began with a flourish but could not sustain the tempo right through the race which was won by Japan's Kayako Fukushi with a timing of 31;29.38.
Shanti Soundarajan and Sinimole Paulose had no diffulty in cruising into the final of the women's 800 m. While Santhi finished first in her heat with a timing of 2:08.62 Paulose, a SAF Games silver medallist, clocked 2:10.16 to take the second position in her heat.
In the men's long jump, India's Shiv Shankar Yadav just about managed to qualify to the final with a first jump effort of 7.51 m.
Although the qualifying mark was set at 7.60, he managed to sneak in as a second best performer as only three jumpers achieved the qualifying mark.
Hamza Chatoli recorded a personal best timing of 3:44.35 as he forced his way into the final of the men's 1500 m run heats.