Long jumper Sreeshankar confident of hitting World Championships qualification mark at National Inter-State meet

Since his return from a knee injury sustained during training in April last year and the subsequent surgery in Qatar, India’s top long jumper Murali Sreeshankar has been having a good run.

The 26-year-old from Kerala has won all three International meets he has participated in since July.

His best has been the 8.13m jump at the World Athletics Continental Tour bronze event in Bhubaneswar (August 10), after leaping to 7.75m in Portugal (July 19) and 7.94m in Kazakhstan (August).

While the qualifying mark for the World Championships (September 13 to 21 in Tokyo) is 8.27m, the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games silver medallist was confident of pulling it off and felt there would be no pressure when the National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships begin at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai on August 20. The meet is the final selection trial for Worlds.

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“I am trying to chase the qualification mark in one month, which should have happened in a span of one year. So, I am squeezing in one-year process into one month. But I want to get that qualification mark and then go for the World Championships. For every Worlds (2019 in Doha & 2023 in Budapest), I have hit the qualification mark and went, rather than based on World rankings,” Sreeshankar told Sportstar on Tuesday.

Sreeshankar said he has prepared well and that his knee is responding well. “My body is good. Preparation, too, has been really good. My knee is responding quite well to the training. I am expecting some good results when the finals of the men’s long jump begin on August 24 (Sunday). There is no pressure. So, when preparation meets opportunity, big jumps will come,” he said.