Sreeshankar sets national mark with 8.2m in long jump
Kerala’s M Sreeshankar set a national record of 8.20m on way to gold in the men’s long jump on the penultimate day of the National Open Athletics Championships at Bhubaneswar (Odisha) on Thursday.
The performance of the 19-year-old engineering student from Palakkad was better than Ankit Sharma’s 8.19m set two years ago in Almaty.
The teenager, who was favourite to win gold, began his campaign on a positive note, jumping to a distance of 7.95m which was close to his personal best of 7.99m recorded in March at the Federation Cup in Patiala.
Though he fouled his second, fourth and sixth jumps, Sreeshankar leapt to 8.20m in his fifth to enter the record books. Jinesh VO of Services won silver at 7.95m while Sahil Mahabali of Haryana was third at 7.81m. At the Jakarta Asian Games, Sreeshankar could achieve only 7.95m to finish sixth.
Sreeshankar also finished sixth (7.76m) in the U-20 Worlds held at Tampere, Finland in July. However, he missed the April 4-15 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games due to appendicitis. His only international medal was a bronze (7.47m) in the junior Asian meet in June.
CAS OPENS RUSSIA CASE
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has launched an arbitration procedure a day after the Russian athletics federation appealed against the decision by global athletics body IAAF to extend its suspension, CAS said on Thursday. CAS confirmed the federation was looking to void the IAAF’s decision in July to prolong the ban and regain Russia’s full IAAF membership.