JAKARTA: Asian champion Muhammed Anas and Arokia Rajiv qualified for the men's 400m semifinals on the opening day of the Asian Games athletics competition here.
Anas, who holds the national record in the event, topped his heat after clocking 45.63sec, while Rajiv took 46.82sec to qualify from Heat 4.
Anas, who has a personal best of 45.24, easily finished ahead of Qatar's Mohamed Abbas (45.81) and Sri Lanka's Kalinga Kumarage (45.99).
Rajiv came finished second behind Qatar's Abdalelah Hassan (46.28).
The semifinals will be held in the evening.
In the high jump, Chetan Balasubramanya made the final by clearing 2.15m but none of the 13 qualifiers could touch the automatic qualfication mark, which was set at 2.20m.
Chetan began with 2.05m before clearing 2.15m to manage a place in the final line-up.