Kerala Long jumper Sreeshankar sets new national record, qualifies for Tokyo Olympics

Patiala:Indian long jumper Murali Sreeshankar broke his own national record and qualified for the Tokyo Olympics with a 8.26-metre leap at the Federation Cup Senior National Athletics Championships, here on Tuesday.

The Olympics qualification mark in men's long jump event is 8.22m while the Kerala athlete's previous best had been 8.20m, which he had registered in 2018.Another Kerala jumper Muhammed Anees Yahiya (8m) and S Lokesh (7.60m) of Karnataka clinched the silver and bronze respectively.

Five race walkers (KT Irfan, Sandeep Kumar and Rahul Rohilla in men’s 20km event and Bhawana Jat and Priyanka Goswami in women’s 20km event), two javelin throwers (Neeraj Chopra and Shivpal Singh), Avinash Sable (men’s 3000m steeplechase) and the mixed 4x400m relay team have earlier qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.

In women's category, National record holder Dutee Chand was beaten to second place by Tamil Nadu's S Dhanalakshmi, while Hima Das was disqualified after a false start in a much-anticipated women’s 100m sprint final.

The 22-year-old Dhanalakshmi won the gold by clocking 11.39 seconds ahead of Dutee (11.58) to become the fastest woman of the championships on the second day of competitions.

Another Tamil Nadu sprinter Archana Suseendran won the bronze with 11.76 seconds.

The Olympic qualification mark for women's 100m stands at 11.15 seconds.In the men’s 100 metres, Punjab’s Gurvinder Singh defended his Federation Cup title clocking 10.23 seconds.

Elakkiyadasan Kannadas of Tamil finished second in 10.43 while Maharashtra’s Satish Rane completed the podium in 10.56 seconds. The Olympic cut for men is 10.05 seconds.

Rio Olympian M R Poovamma, representing Karnataka, took the gold in women’s 400m, winning the final race in 53.57 seconds. Tamil Nadu’s Subha Venkatesan (54.48) and Kiran Pahal of Haryana took the silver and bronze respectively.(UNI)