jakarta the spotlight will be on neeraj chopra and hima das while dutee chand would look to prove a point when indias track and field athletes begin their campaign in the asian games on saturday the rise of young athletes and consistency shown by the established names such as mohammed anas seema punia and jinson johnson has given hopes of india bettering its medal tally of the last editionof indias 57 medals at the last edition athletics had delivered 13 including two goldindia has never won a gold in javelin throw in the asian games and chopra is expected to change this piece of statisticshowever the road will not be easy for the 2016 under20 world champion he has been in the best of form this season with a throw of 8743m during the diamond league meeting in doha in may but he will face stiff competition from chinese taipeis cheng chao tsun who has a personal best throw of 9136 achieved last yeartsun though has managed only 8460m as his best this season so far as he is struggling with an elbow injurymens javelin final is scheduled for august 27no indian has come close to finishing on the podium in javelin event since gurtej singh won a bronze at the 1982 asian games in new delhihima on the other hand has had a sensational rise after starting her career as late as 2016her timing of 5132 seconds at the commonwealth games placed her sixth in a worldclass field but a run in 5146 seconds at tampere made her the first indian woman to win a gold at an iaaf world junior championshipsbut she is unlikely to clinch a gold in his first asian games unless bahrains salwa eid naser goofs up big time the nigerianborn naser is the 2017 world championships silver medalist and has won four legs of the prestigious diamond league series this yearher 4908 seconds timing while finishing second in the monaco leg diamond league meeting in july is the asian record and second leading time in the world this seasonnaser has run below 50 seconds regularly and she is the firm favourite to clinch the gold in the womens 400m gold in jakartaborn to a rice farmers family at a village at dhing assam the 18yearold hima has been making rapid strides in her fledging career with her 5113 seconds personal best hima is expected to give a tough fight to naser and at least stand on the podiumshe will have compatriot nirmala sheoran personal best 5125 in the field on saturday in the qualification roundafter winning her gender case at the court of arbitration for sports the 22yearold dutee bettered her own 100m national record at the interstate national championships in june by clocking 1129seconds in semifinals she won gold with a timing of 1132 secondshowever these timings are behind chinas wei yongli 1099 bahrains hajar saad al ameeri 1117 and viktoria zyabkina 1120 who will all be part of the fieldthe qualification round