Eugene: As a medal hope for India in the world arena came one step closer after long-jumper Murali Sreeshankar from Kerala qualified for the finals in the World Athletics Championship on Saturday. He leapfrogged into the finals after securing second place in Group B.
In his second attempt, the Keralite crossed the 8-meter mark that is needed for qualifying for finals. He was ranked eighth among 12 athletes who qualified for finals. Meanwhile, Muhammed Anees Yahiya and Jeswin Aldrin failed to qualify. In the 3000-meter steeple chase, Avinash Sable also qualified for the finals by coming third in the heats. National record holder long jumper Murali Sreeshankar will be a dark horse as he sits at joint second place among season leaders with his 8.36m effort during the Federation Cup in April.
The 23-year-old Sreeshankar has also been a consistent performer this season. He had another big jump of 8.31m in an event in Greece before winning gold at the National Inter-State Championships with a leap of 8.23m. Sreeshankar shares the joint second spot among season leaders with Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece who is the favourite to win gold here.
The first day of competitions on Friday also witnessed Sandeep Kumar and Priyanka Goswami competing in men’s and women’s 20km race walk event finals respectively while Asian record holder shot putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor will have his qualification round. Athletics Federation of India (AFI) initially named a 22-member team but later added long jumper Aldrin to the contingent. But three athletes are set to miss the championships. Quarter-miler Aishwarya Mishra and men’s 4x400m relay team member Arokia Rajiv failed to impress the selectors in two rounds of trials while 200m runner S Dhanalakshmi had visa problems.
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