Aishwarya achieves longest jump by an Indian woman in 17 years
Shantanu Srivastava
NEW DELHI: Karnataka’s B Aishwarya jumped 6.73 metres in the women’s long jump qualifiers at the inter-state athletics meet in Chennai on Sunday, becoming the second Indian to cross 6.70m while ending a 17-year wait to achieve that. Aishwarya’s effort is only behind national record holder Anju Bobby George, who leapt 6.83m to finish fifth in the 2004 Athens Olympics and then achieved 6.75m a year later. Anju Bobby George jumped 6.70m to claim bronze in the 2003 world athletics championships in Paris. Since then, the mark had assumed a gold standard in Indian athletics. Anju produced a national record of 6.83 metres at Athens the next year, and followed it with 6.75m in Monte Carlo, at the IAAF World Athletics Final. Her original silver was upgraded in 2017 to gold by World Athletics after Russia’s Tatyana Kotova—she had won gold—positive dope test.
Sunday’s effort thus puts the 24-year-old Aishwarya in an elite club. She had also leapt 6 metres first in Chennai five years ago. In 2021, Aishwarya jumped 6.52m in Warangal, while in March, she cleared 6.32 metres in Kolkata. Kerala’s Ancy Sojan (6.28m),
Nayana James (6.26m) and Lekshmi Sruthilekshmi (6.18), along with world U-20 silver medallist Shaili Singh (6.12m), a trainee at Anju’s academy in Bengaluru representing Uttar Pradesh, also qualified for the final.
Much like men’s javelin, women’s long jump too is under focus after Shaili Singh won the world junior silver in Nairobi last year.
Aishwarya’s performance stood out on day when shot putter Tejinder Pal Singh Toor breached the 20m mark thrice to win the event. The 27-year-old was consistent, going past 20 metres in all his three legal attempts—20.14m, 20.29m and 20.34m.
Annu Rani, India’s only woman javelin thrower in the 60m club, managed only two legal throws, one of which was a 60.93m effort. The athlete from Meerut, who has set the national record multiple times, has produced better efforts this season—61.15m at the Federation Cup in April and 63.82m at the India Open Javelin Throw Competition last month.
There was huge disappointment for the new women’s 100m hurdles star Jyothi Yarraji. Fresh from a record-breaking spree in Europe—she bettered her personal best six times and the national mark a few times, Jyothi struggled for rhythm as she knocked down a few hurdles before crashing in the final hurdle. She owns the top six times in her event, the best being 13.04secs set in Netherlands last month. She is being coached by Britain’s former 400m hurdler James Hillier at the Reliance academy in Bhubaneswar.
With Jyothi failing, Tamil Nadu’s C Kanimozhi won the event in 13.62 seconds. On Saturday, DP Manu won the men’s javelin that saw three throwers clear the 80m mark. Manu threw 84.35m while Rohit Yadav (UP) took silver. Yashvir Singh (Rajasthan) took bronze.