Hima Das couldn't have asked for a better first heat in the 400m at her Asian Games debut here on Saturday. The 18-year-old 400m U-20 World Champion had Asia's fastest quarter-miler Yaser Salwa for company and the Indian smartly finished a close second, clocking 51.00s to the Bahrain champ's new Asian Games record time of 50.86s, and comfortably qualified for Sunday's final at the GBK Stadium.

Hima also broke the national record (51.05s set by Manjit Kaur) in the bargain even as she seemed to hold up her final sprint across the last 50m or so in a bid to not go all out just yet against her highly accomplished competitor. She didn't want to discuss her strategy.