Indian high jumper Tejaswin Shankar has claimed a gold medal at the Big 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Manhattan, USA.It was also a season-best performance for the Indian but a centimetre short of his personal best and the current national record of 2.29m.
Representing Kanasas State University, Tejaswin cleared 2.28 metres on Saturday, making a facility record.It was also a season-best performance for the Indian but a centimetre short of his personal best and the current national record of 2.29m which he created in 2018.
University of Oklahoma’s Vernon Turner (2.25m) and Texas Tech University’s Jequan Hogan (2.11m) claimed the silver and bronze respectively.
This was Tejaswin’s second successive gold at the event.He claimed the top honours in 2019 as well while the event could not be held in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.The 22-year-old has been in the US since 2017 when he joined the Kansas State University to pursue business administration on a scholarship.
At the age of 17, Shankar rose to prominence when he broke Hari Shankar Roy’s 12-year-old national record of 2.25 metres with a jump of 2.26 metres at the Junior National Championships in Coimbatore in November 2016. He was the third best IAAF junior high jumper in the world that year.He was bedridden for six months in 2017 with a slipped disc.
In January 2018, Shankar broke Roy’s indoor national record with a mark of 2.18 metres, and then bettered it by a centimetre the same month. In February, he further improved on his indoor record with a 2.28 metres leap at the Big 12 Indoor Athletics Championships in Ames.
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