HELSINKI, Aug 6: Pakistan’s lone female competitor at the World Athletics Championships, Gulnaz Ara, made a swift exit on Saturday after finishing a disappointing 35th in the women’s 800-metre heats on the opening day of the competition.

Gulnaz timed two minutes and 13.87 seconds, which was fractionally better than Gabon’s Marlyse Nsourou (2:14.47) and Markabo Djama Liban of Djibouti (2:50.95), the last two finishers in the summary of all five heats.

However, the Pakistani girl finished last in heat 4. Russia’s Svetlana Cherkasova, who breezed through in the fourth heat in a time of two minutes and 00.62 seconds topped the overall list of qualifiers. Meanwhile, the fate of Pakistan’s only other representative in the world championships, Afzal Beg, was unknown since his name was missing from the list of all the eight heats in the men’s 100-metre competition which were run in the afternoon.—Agencies