India long jumper Murali Sreeshankar on Saturday became the first Indian track and field athlete to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics after winning a silver medal in the Asian Athletics Championships with a second career-best effort of 8.37 metres in Bangkok.
Swapna Barman won the silver in heptathlon.
Sreeshankar, 24-year-old, achieved the Olympic qualification with his final round jump of 8.37m. The Paris Games mark is 8.27m and the qualification period began on July 1.
Yu Tang Lin of Taiwan won the gold with a fourth-round jump of 8.40m, which is the third-best effort in the world this season.
Four 20km race walkers — Akshdeep 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 December 31, 2022 to June 30, 2024 while for marathon race, it is from November 1, 2022 to April 30, 2024.
The qualifying period for all other events is from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024.
Sreeshankar will be competing in his second Olympics. He was eliminated in the qualification round in the Tokyo Games.
“My first target was to get the Olympic qualification mark of 8.27 because I felt very good at training in Switzerland last week,” Sreeshankar said.
“Considering the fact that I have qualified for the Paris Olympics 2024, I am very relieved, and I will open up my 2024 season very late. I will probably start only in May/June. Hence, I will have a good amount of time to prepare in the off-season. The Asian Games will end in the first week of October and after rest and recovery, I will only be able to start my training by the first or second week of November. I need solid time for the Olympic Games preparations,” he added.
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 Indian mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Rajesh Ramesh, Aishwarya Mishra, Amoj Jacob and Subha Venkatesan clinched gold medal with a timing of three minute and 14.70 seconds, while Sarvesh Anil Kushare added a silver in men’s high jump.
Written with inputs from PTI
