M Sreeshankar Becomes First Indian Athlete To Qualify For Paris Olympics 2023, Wins Silver In Asian Athletics C'ships

JE Sports Desk:  India's Murali Sreeshankar took a long jump towards the qualification for the Paris Olympics 2024 after his promising effort on the penultimate day of the Asian Athletics Championships in Thailand.

The long jumper registered his best effort of 8.37m to finish on the podium and clinch the Silver medal, his maiden at the Asian Championships. Sreeshankar came in second behind Yu Tang Lin of Chinese Taipei, who registered a jump of 8.40m on Saturday.

M Sreeshankar records a big jump of 8.37m, but settles for silver in men's long jump.#AsianAthleticsChampionships

— Athletics Federation of India (@afiindia) July 15, 2023

Murali Sreeshankar becomes the first Indian Athlete (in addition to the Race Walkers) to qualify for #Paris2024 . He bags a silver medal at #AsianAthleticsChampionships with a best jump of 8.37m. Well done Sree #IndianAthletics pic.twitter.com/8tT6tVpPhQ

— Rahul Bhutani (@BhutaniRahul) July 15, 2023

After successfully breaching the qualification mark of 8.27m, Sreeshankar booked a quota in the men's long jump for the enormous event in Paris next year.

 

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The young long jumper continues to be consistent at the highest level as he began the day with a fine jump of 8.10m and improved his mark to 8.12m after his 3rd jump.

The 24-year-old was leading the men's long jump field including 17 jumpers after three attempts before Tang Lin stunned everyone with a stunning jump to seal the victory despite intense competition from Sreeshankar and China's Mingkun Zhang.

Sreeshankar had achieved his personal best of 8.41m recently in June at the Inter-state Nationals in Bhubaneshwar. He also created history last month by becoming the first Indian long jumper to finish on the podium at Diamond League.

However, there was disappointment for high jumper Tejaswin Shankar as he finished 7th in the men's high jump final.

Earlier, Santhosh Kumar too finished second to clinch the bronze medal in men’s 400m hurdles with a personal best time of 49.09 seconds on the fourth and penultimate day of competitions.

 

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Santhosh clocked the fastest time by an Indian in men’s 400m hurdles this year when he finished behind gold medal winner Qatar's Mohammed Hemeida Bassem (48.64 seconds) and Japan's Yusaku Kodama (48.96).

The 25-year-old’s previous best was 49.49 which he had clocked last year.