Sreeshankar leaps to gold in men’s long jump

Having already breached the qualification marks for the forthcoming 2026 Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, the Indian Athletics Series-6 served as a platform for Murali Sreeshankar to assess his preparedness for the big events.

At the Nehru Stadium here on Sunday, the 27-year-old from Kerala produced a creditable 8.04m effort in his fourth attempt to clinch gold, ahead of P. David, who managed 7.77m in his sixth and final attempt.

Earlier, Tejas Shirse, the country’s top 110m hurdler and National record holder, clocked the fastest time in his first domestic meet of the season, winning in 13.43 seconds — just 0.02 seconds shy of his National mark.

Both Tejas and M. Krishik (13.44) of Reliance cleared the qualification mark for the Asian Games.

Tejas, recovering from an ankle injury, was pleased with his performance. “I had an ankle injury this January while training. I think I fought my hardest battle during this injury because I went to Europe (Poland) and my performance was really bad as I was competing with the injury.

“I trained for just three weeks and to clock 13.43 in that time is a really great achievement for me,” he said.

Late in the evening, 24-year-old Adarsh Ram of Tamil Nadu cleared 2.27m while winning the men’s high jump before attempting 2.30m in a bid to surpass the National record of 2.29m held by Tejaswin Shankar.

However, he failed to clear the height in all three attempts.

The results (winners):

Men: 100m:A. Krishna Prakash (Ker) 10.82s; B: Rohan Ghosh (WB) 10.59; C: B. Karan (TN) 10.64; D: P. Sandosh (TN) 10.61; E: R. Manav (Rlys) 10.49; F: Eeshan Mendis (Mah) 10.77; G: Sadanand Kumar (Jhr) 10.65; H: Eugene Shelton (TN) 10.70; I: Mahendra Santa (Odi) 10.63; J: Mohamed Haonif (TN) 10.61; K: Pranav Pramod Gurav (Rel) 10.32.

110m hurdles: A. Aravinth Arumugam (TN) 14.20s; B: Dhanush Adithan (Rlys) 14.30; C: Rathish Pan (Rel) 14.10; D: Tejas Shirse (Rel) 13.43.

Javelin: Arshdeep Singh (Pun) 77.04.

400m hurdles: A: Murad Simran (Guj) 50.98s; B: Pranam Devendra S (Kar) 53.42s; C: Aryan Prajwal Kashyap (JSW) 51.95s; D: Subhas Das (Navy) 50.93; E: T. Santhosh Kumar (NCOE, Thiruvanthapuram) 49.47.

5000m: Abhishek Pal (Rlys) 13:57.01; long jump: Murali Sreeshankar (Ker) 8.04m; shot put: S. Kumaran (TN) 17.66m.

Women: 100m: A: S. Akshaya (TN) 12.01s; B: Mariya Nivetha P Part (TN) 12.06; C: Prakruthi Roopa Rao (Kar) 12.07; D: Kiruthika (TN) 12.04; E: Srabani Nanda (Odi) 11.67; F: Giridharan Ravikumar (TN) 11.51.

400m hurdles: A: A. Shravani Bhate (Kar) 1:02.78s; B: Shravani Sachin (Mah) 59.99; C: Lovely Rajput (UP) 1:01.34; D: R. Anu (Rel) 56.95.

5000m: Aarti Pawara (Mah) 17:06.69; long jump: A. Sherin (JSW) 6.07m; high jump: Abhinaya Shetty (JSW) 1.71m; discus: Nidhi Rani (Har) 58.82m.

Pole vault: Baranica Elangovan (TN) 4.10m; shot put: Krishna Jayasankar (TN)) 16.96m; triple jump: I. Ilango (TN) 13.52m.