Murali Sreeshankar continued his good run of form in the 2022 season with a commendable seventh place finish in the long jump event at the World Indoor Athletics Championship in Belgrade, Serbia, on Friday.
The 22-year-old leapt a distance of 7.92 m, a new national indoor record, in his third attempt to go better than the 7.62m he jumped at the (outdoor) World Championships in Doha in 2019, and the 7.69m at the Tokyo Olympics last year.
Earlier this month, he jumped a strong 8.17m to win gold in the inaugural AFI National Open Jumps Competition in Trivandrum, beating compatriot Mohammad Anees Yahiya’s personal best of 8.15m.
In Belgrade though, Sreeshankar, whose national record stands at 8.26m (set in Patiala last year) was the most consistent jumper in the field as he was the only one to record a legitimate jump on each of his six attempts.
He started off with a 7.58m attempt, and followed it up with a 7.90m effort. Then came his best, at 7.92m, followed by jumps of 7.21m, 7.83m and 7.84m, to keep him seventh in the list of 14 jumpers.
The top three finishers were Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece (8.55m), Thobias Montler of Sweden (8.38m) and American Marquis Dendy who took bronze with a 8.27m attempt.
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