Injured long jumper Murali Sreeshankar to miss Paris Olympics
Sreeshankar had secured a quota for Paris after breaching the men’s long jump Olympic qualifying standard of 8.27m at the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok, Thailand last year.
Murali Sreeshankar of India won silver in the men’s long jump competition at the Commonwealth Games on Thursday at the Alexander Stadium in Glasgow.
This is India’s second athletics medal at Birmingham 2022, following Tejaswin Shankar’s bronze in the high jump on Wednesday.
This medal brings India’s total medal count at the Commonwealth Games to 19 (five gold, seven silver, and seven silver).
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Sreeshankar leapfrogged from seventh to second place with a superb jump on his fifth attempt of 8.08 metres.
The athlete from Palakkad, Kerala, tied for first place at 8.08 metres, but Laquan Nairn of Bahamas won the gold medal with a better second jump of 7.94 metres, compared to 7.84 metres by Sreeshankar, who had a very disappointing performance at the Tokyo Olympics. Jovan van Vuuren of South Africa took bronze with a best effort of 8.06 metres.
This is India’s first silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in men’s long jump, and its second medal in this discipline after Suresh Babu won bronze in Edmonton, Canada in 1978.
Anju Bobby George, who won the women’s long jump bronze medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, was the last Indian to do so.
The other Indian in the men’s long jump final, Muhammad Anees Yahiya, finished fifth with a best effort of 7.97 metres.
(Inputs from IANS)
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