Beijing Grand Prix: Five Talking Points

What were the headlines following last weekend’s Beijing Grand Prix, which took place 11-13 May? Here are five talking points to round up the action.

• World record broken after more than 10 years

World and Paralympic champion Cuiqing Liu added the 400m T11 world record* to her list of achievements, knocking 0.14 seconds of the mark set by Brazil’s former world champion Terezhina Guilhermina back in 2007. Liu clocked 56.00 over one lap.

• China’s female throwers go top of the world

The host nation’s London 2017 world champions were in great form, with the likes of Lijuan Zou (shot put F34), Yuping Zhao (discus F12, shown on picture above), Liangmin Zhang (discus F11), Na Mi (31.37m) (discus F37) all throwing 2018 world bests.

• Hat trick for Liwan Yang

Paralympic champion Liwan Yang notched up three golds and three world leads in Beijing – winning the shot put, javelin and discus F54. The 40-year-old is surely a favourite for gold at this year’s Asian Para Games.

• International stars win in Beijing

There was double success for Greek world and Paralympic champion Stefanoudakis Manolis who the javelin and shot put F54; Uzbekistan’s world and Paralympic champion Aleksandr Svechnikov threw a world lead in the javelin F13 and Japan’s Asian Para Games double gold medallist Saito Yukiko took the world number one spot in the women’s shot put F46.

• Zhou leaps to long jump success

Home favourite and double world sprint champion Guohua Zhou turned her attention to the long jump on the first day of competition in Beijing, and promptly leapt a best of 4.99m to propel her straight to the top of the world rankings. The mark put her 5cm ahead of Brazil’s Paralympic champion Silvania Costa de Oliveira, who returned to international competition in April following the birth of her child last year.

*subject to ratification by the IPC.