Sreeshankar makes the cut for Tokyo
PATIALA: Murali Sreeshankar was going through a dream sequence for any long jumper. Each attempt was clean, over 8m, and was steadily getting better and the sparse crowd at the Federation Cup athletics meet in the National Institute of Sports (NIS) campus here waited on Tuesday. Another win by the national record holder was a given, but anticipation was building as he stood on top of his run-up for his fifth attempt.
Sreeshankar, and the discerning few watching, were interested only in one thing— the Tokyo Olympics qualifying mark of 8.22m. And the athlete, who will turn 22 this month, uncorked a 8.26m jump that tied the world-leading distance of 2021—he is only the third to achieve the distance early in the season—with a new national record and Olympic qualification assured. The jumper had nicely peaked towards his big jump in the last one month with solid performances in the Indian Grand Prix meets. Tuesday’s winning jump would have placed him fourth in the 2016 Rio Olympics competition.
With long strides, Sreeshankar powered down the runway, hit the board and neatly took-off. The moment he landed and rose from the pit, he was animated. And when the display board flashed 8.26m, Sreeshankar burst into celebration. Only two others had jumped the distance so far this year. His sequence of jumps was 8.02m, 8.04m, 8.07m and 8.09m, underlining his fluency. The 8.26m came with a negligible tailwind of .03m/s. He skipped the last attempt, bowed to the gathering and left. For the last couple of years, Sreeshankar has been acknowledged as one of India’s most talented athletes. He is coached by his father S Murali, a former international triple jumper, who was present to watch his son achieve his dream of qualifying for the Olympics. Athletics run in his family, mother K S Bijimol was a 800m runner and his sister is a heptathlete. “I got a bit emotional today. It has come after a long wait and me and my dad have seen several ups and downs along the road,” he said.
The last Indian male long jumper to qualify for the Olympics was Ankit Sharma, for the 2016 Rio Games. Sanjai K Rai competed at 2000 Sydney, TC Yohanan at Montreal in 1976 and Baldev Singh, who reached the final of 1948 London.
Sreeshankar has opted to train with Murali in their hometown Palakkad, even refusing the federation’s offer of a foreign coach as he believes only his father knows how to get the best out of him. Competing in the Olympics has been an obsession for Sreeshankar from a young age. Even the e-mail id he created in 2012 included the word Olympics. “Such has been his passion. It is a dream come true for us,” said Murali. Athletics has flourished at the expense of studies. Despite being a bright student, he had to drop out of engineering and MBBS. “Long jump takes so much of his time.
He was a topper in the first semester in engineering but could not continue; the same with MBBS. Now, he is pursuing BSc mathematics from a government college,” said Murali. For Sreeshankar the qualification is a reassurance of his abilities. The last three years have been a learning curve. In the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, he pulled out at the last minute due to appendicitis. It led to weight loss and a tough recovery period. In the Jakarta Asian Games which followed, he was not at his best.
But in September 2018, he broke the national record at the National Open Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar, achieving 8.20m to qualify for the 2019 Doha World Championships. “I was competing against the top jumpers of the world at the biggest of stages, and I was too young to comprehend that when I saw them beside me. Mentally I was not mature enough,” said Sreeshankar, who jumped only 7.62m in Doha.