Murali Sreeshankar bags silver medal at Asian Athletics Championships, qualifies for Paris Olympics

Long jumper Murali Sreeshankar qualified for the Paris Olympics next year with a leap of 8.37 metres at the Asian Athletics Championships. With the jump, Sreeshankar won a silver medal which is India’s 12th at the event in Bangkok, Thailand. Sreeshankar is the first Indian athlete, alongside race walkers, to qualify for the Summer Olympics in Paris next year.

Athletics, #AsianAthleticsChampionships: MURALI SREESHANKAR.. YOU BEAUTY.. ONE OF THE BEST PERFORMANCE BY THE INDIAN LONG JUMPER EVER! FIRST INDIAN FIELD EVENT ATHLETE TO QUALIFY FOR #Paris2024 WITH A HUMONGOUS LEAP OF 8.37M (-1.1 M/S)

SILVER 🥈 FOR HIM..

🥈🇮🇳❤️@SreeshankarM pic.twitter.com/olszXLWgOK

— Vishank Razdan (@VishankRazdan) July 15, 2023

Chinese Taipei’s Yu Tang Lin won the gold medal in long jump with a leap of 8.40m. Sreeshankar started with jump of 8.10m followed by a foul and then 8.12m, 8.11m, 8.13m. His best came in the sixth and final attempt where he jumped 8.37m for his season best. His previous best this season was 8.29m at the MVA High-Performance athletics meet 1 in Chula Vista, USA in May. The entry standard for long jump at Paris Olympics was set at 8.27m. Earlier, Santhosh Kumar won bronze medal in men’s 400m hurdles with a personal best time of 49.09 seconds on the fourth and penultimate day of competitions. Santhosh clocked the fastest time by an Indian in men’s 400m hurdles this year when he finished behind gold medal winner Mohammed Hemeida Bassem (48.64 seconds) of Qatar and Yusaku Kodama (48.96) of Japan. The 25-year-old’s previous best was 49.49 which he had clocked last year. India also clinched a gold medal on the day as the mixed 4x400m relay team ran a national record time of 3 minute and 14.70 seconds, while Sarvesh Anil Kushare and Swapna Barman added a silver each in men’s high jump and heptathlon respectively. With one gold, three silver and a bronze won Saturday, India has now won 14 medals (6 gold, 4 silver and 4 bronze). Four 20km race walkers — Akshadeep Singh, Vikas Singh and Paramjeet Singh Bisht in men’s event and Priyanka Goswami in women’s event — have already qualified for the Paris Olympics. But race walk is a road event in the Olympics. The Paris Olympics qualifying period for 10,000m, combined events (decathlon and heptathlon), race walks and relays is from 31 December, 2022 to 30 June, 2024 while for marathon race, it is from 1 November, 2022 to 30 April, 2024. The qualifying period for all other events is from 1 July, 2023 to 30 June, 2024. Sreeshankar will be competing in his second Olympics. He was eliminated in the qualification round in the Tokyo Games. Sreeshankar, who entered the exclusive three-member Indian club of Diamond League medal winners in Paris last month, was the favourite to win the gold in Bangkok. He was leading midway the event with his third jump of 8.12m but his Chinese Taipei opponent took the lead in the fourth round with 8.40m and held on to it till the end. “I am relieved that I have qualified for the Olympics. I will have a lot of time to prepare for the Paris Games,” he said in a virtual media interaction. “I knew the Chinese Taipei athlete was going to be a good competitor.” Sreeshankar, who trained in USA and in Europe earlier in the year in the run-up to the World Championships, gave his all in his final attempt. “I thought my last jump would go beyond 8.45m. It was a near perfect jump with the foot landing was just behind the board. It could not win gold but still happy with my performance.” Sreeshankar, who had won a bronze in the 2022 Commonwealth Games, has already qualified for the Budapest World Championships in August with his career-best and world second-ranked jump of 8.41m during the qualification round of the National Inter-State Championships last month. No Indian has ever won a long jump gold in the Asian Championships after TC Yohannan stood on the top of the podium in the 1975 edition. The last Indian long jumper to win a medal was K Prem Kumar who bagged a silver in 2013. The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Rajesh Ramesh, Aishwarya Mishra, Amoj Jacob and Subha Venkatesan erased the earlier national record of 3:15.77 seconds clocked during the 2019 World Championships.

And the 1⃣st🥇of the day for 🇮🇳 at Asian Athletics Championships is here, cheers to the Mixed Relay Team!

The Team of @SAITrivandrum campers Rajesh Ramesh, Aishwarya Mishra, Amoj Jacob & Subha Venkateshan raced to mark victory with a timing of 3:14.70s in 4x400 Mixed Relay pic.twitter.com/x2prKQDsEY

— SAI Media (@Media_SAI) July 15, 2023

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“We knew that we are capable of setting national record and we achieved that. We were a bit concerned about the Japanese team (which eventually finished third). Our next aim is to run in the World Championships (next month),” Jacob said. Kushare cleared 2.26m for his high jump silver but failed in his three attempts for 2.28m. Competing two days after winning a bronze in decathlon, Tejaswin Shankar, who holds the high jump national record of 2.29m, could only clear 2.10m to finish seventh. T Woo Sanghyeok of Korea took the gold by clearing 2.28m. It was the first major international medal for Kushare who hails from a humble family at Deogaon village near Nasik in Maharashtra. His earlier success was the gold in 2019 South Asian Games. He did not have even basic equipment, like the landing mat when he started under childhood coach R Jadhav. The injury-prone 26-year-old Barman accumulated 5,840 points from the seven events competed over two days. Ekaterina Veronina of Uzbekistan won gold with a total of 6,098 points. “I was competing with pain, my back is really bad and I can’t even walk up steps easily. I can’t also do two sessions of training everyday, so I have been on just one training session a day for the last two and a half months,” Barman said. “I don’t know how long I will continue but for sure I will do my best to compete in the upcoming Asian Games. Beyond that, I don’t know. I have to start slowly and do two sessions of training a day and take proper care of my back.” Barman had won heptathlon gold in 2017 Asian Championships, gold in the 2018 Asian Games and a silver in 2019 Asian Championships Another Indian Yashas Palaksha had also qualified for the final but he did not take part. No Indian has ever won a men’s 400m hurdles gold in Asian Championships. Joseph Abraham’s silver in 2009 edition was the best performance by an Indian while he also won a bronze in 2007. MP Jabir won a bronze each in the last two editions. Athletics Federation of India (AFI) president Adille Sumariwalla said that the national body has submitted the Indian track and field team for the Hangzhou Asian Games to the Indian Olympic Association but will make a formal announcement on Monday or Tuesday. Saturday is the deadline for submitting the team to the Asian Games (23 September to 8 October) organisers. (with inputs from PTI)