Xie Yuankai advances to Nagoya Asian Games men's 110m hurdles final

Xie Yuankai (left). (Reuters)

[Special Correspondent Wu Mengru/Reporting from Nagoya] His family flew to Japan to watch the competition in person. Xie Yuankai successfully passed the preliminaries today and advanced to the men's 110-meter hurdles final of the Nagoya Asian Games with a time of 13.60 seconds. He said, "They came to see me before and they all said I was a bad runner, so I made up my mind to make it to the finals in the next competition!"

Xie Yuankai ran 13.60 seconds in the preliminaries and advanced to the third place in the group. He thought that he ran well in the front, but his old problem in the back stage resurfaced. He tried to speed up but was overtaken. He had a sense of déjà vu at the World Youth Championships two years ago. He revealed that he was competing with the Chinese star Chen Yuanjiang at the time. "I beat him in the first five hurdles and was passed in the last five hurdles. Just like today, I told him after the game that he also remembered this."

It was the first time he stepped onto the Asian Games field. Xie Yuankai said: "I was super excited. Everything felt very fresh. It was just that I was really anxious a few days ago and worried about not running well or making mistakes. But when I got to the field, I was really excited!"

It is worth mentioning that Xie Yuankai’s family members also came to watch the games, which became another motivation for him. After all, they flew to the World Universiade and Asian Championships to cheer him on, but they failed to do well. Therefore, they later vowed to reach the finals of this year’s games. Now that they have successfully advanced to the Asian Games, I hope they can continue to work hard and deliver good results in tomorrow’s games.