India’s Sreeshankar in motion through the males’s long jump in the Diamond League in Paris on June 9, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
M. Sreeshankar upset some large names as he gained the long jump bronze on the Diamond League on a cloudy night time on the Charlety Stadium in Paris on Friday. The Commonwealth Games silver medallist got here up with an 8.09m in the third spherical for his greatest medal this yr.
That made Sreeshankar solely the third Indian, after discus thrower Vikas Gowda and javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, and the primary Indian long jumper to win a medal in the Diamond League.
Sreeshankar, who has a private better of 8.36m (2022), began with 7.79 and moved to the second spot with 8.09m — his finest jump in the occasion — in the third spherical. The 24-year-old fouled his fourth and sixth jumps and did a 7.99 in his fifth.
Just 4 centimetres separated Sreeshankar, who’s coached by his father S. Murali, and the winner. The bronze ought to assist the teenager climb a number of rungs in the ‘Road to Budapest’ rankings for this August’s World Championships there. He is at present twentieth spot in the listing and the highest 36 make the reduce and the deadline is July 30. The computerized qualification normal is 8.25m.
Greece’s Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou (private finest 8.60m, 2021) took the gold in Paris with 8.13m whereas Switzerland’s Simon Ehammer (pb 8.45, 2022), final yr’s World’s bronze medallist, was second with 8.11.
“We did not have the best conditions, we had negative wind unfortunately,” stated Tentoglou, the World No. 1, after the occasion.
Finishing behind Sreeshankar had been Cuba’s Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Maykel Masso, the World No. 2, with 7.83 and Sweden’s World No. 4 Thobias Montler, the the 2021 Diamond League champion and final yr’s Indoor Worlds silver medallist, who was seventh with 7.82.
