Al-Saffar, Jayasinghe are fastest

Saudi Arabia's Jamal al-Saffar and Sri Lankan's Susantika Jayasinghe emerged the fastest man and woman at the Asian Games on Tuesday.

Al-Saffar won the men's 100 metres final in 10.24 seconds. Japan's Nobuharu Asahara, aiming to be the first Asian to break 10.00 seconds, finished second in 10.29 seconds while Chen Haijian of China was third in 10.35 seconds.

Sri Lankan champion Jayasinghe won the women's 100 metres in 11.15 seconds, while Lyubov Perepelova of Uzbekistan crossed in 11.38 for the silver. The bronze went to China's Qin Wangping in 11.51.

Perepelova got a slight jump on the Sri Lankan out of the blocks, but Jayasinghe took control of the race at the 50-metre mark and surged safely ahead of the other runners.

Jayasinghe broke the Asian Games record of 11.16 seconds she set earlier today in the preliminary race.

She won Sri Lanka's first Olympic medal in five decades at the 2000 Sydney Games - a 200-meter bronze - and a silver medal at the 1997 world championship in Athens.

She won a 200-metre silver at her first Asian Games in 1994 at Hiroshima, Japan, but she didn't run at the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok because she said she had a hamstring pull.

She was accused of faking the injury so she could avoid Chinese rival Li Xuemei, who won the 100.

Two months ago, Jayasinghe won the 100 and 200 at the Asian athletics championship in Colombo. Last month, she won the 100-metre bronze at the World Cup in Madrid, while finishing fourth in the longer sprint that she ran while ill with the flu.