How Sreeshankar qualified for Tokyo World Championships 2025 in remarkable comeback from injury
After a grueling effort of competing in five events across six weeks, long-jumper Murali Sreeshankar has qualified for the next month’s World Athletics Championships by the barest of margins.
World Athletics, the global body running the sport, on Wednesday released the final list of athletes who have qualified for next month’s showpiece event, set to be held from September 13 to 21 in Tokyo.
Sreeshankar couldn’t meet the entry standard of 8.27m – 14cm shorter than his Personal Best – but he secured the 36th and final spot for the men’s long jump event through the World Rankings route, edging out Frenchman Erwan Konate and Cuban Juan Miguel Echevarria both by a solitary point.
Sreeshankar was tied with China’s Peiqi Gao but since a country can field a maximum of three participants (the number can go up to four if the defending champion is from the same nation) and Gao was fourth amongst the Chinese jumpers, the Indian clinched the last available berth.
It is a remarkable feat for the 26-year-old jumper from Kerala, who returned to the pit in July this year, after being out of action due to a tear in his patellar tendon sustained during training in April of 2024, which forced him to miss the Paris Olympics.
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Competing this year wasn’t even a part of his plan. “We were planning for 2026, for the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games. We were working with Dr. Wayne Lombard (a renowned Athlete Performance Specialist) and he asked us not to push too much for this year,” said S. Murali, Sreeshankar’s father and coach on the sidelines of the recent National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships in Chennai.
Commonwealth Games and Asian Games silver medallist Sreeshankar did eight months of rigorous rehab at the Inspire Institute of Sport in Bellary till December before shifting to the National Centre of Excellence in Thiruvananthapuram for training.
He made his comeback at the Indian Open Athletics Meeting in Pune on July 12 where he bagged gold with a jump of 8.05m. He followed it up with two international meets, Meeting Maia Cidade do Desporto (July 19) in Portugal and XXXIV Qosanov Memorial (August 2) in Kazakhstan, and won both with best jumps of 7.75m and 7.94m, respectively. Then, he returned to India and again stood at the top of the podium at the first-ever World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze Level meet in Bhubaneswar with a Season’s Best of 8.13m.
August 24, the last day of the Inter-State Championships, was also the last day of the qualification period for worlds. The event was extremely crucial for Sreeshankar as it helped him meet the criterion of a minimum of five competitions to enter the World Rankings.
How did the system of World Rankings work?
To enter the rankings for World Championships qualification, the athletes had to compete in a minimum number of events during the qualification period – August 1, 2024 to August 24, 2025. For some disciplines, the required minimum number of events was three while for some, it was five. The performance at every event corresponded to a certain score set by World Athletics. The athletes also received additional points (depending on the category of the event) for the position in which they finished at the events. The average of these scores determined the final ranking points.
Continuing his perfect streak, Sreeshankar won the gold in Chennai as well but he could only manage a best of 8.06m as he was jumping from behind the board. After the event ended, he wasn’t too optimistic about his worlds qualification chances. “No, I don’t think I’ll qualify through the rankings route. I’m not sure but I think the season is pretty much done for me. I’ll probably miss out by one or two spots,” he said.
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“The season has been pretty good for me. I got more than what I expected. It will be greedy to say that I wanted to go for Worlds but greed is good. Greed is what progress is. It is what it is. I am just happy.”
Little did he know that the mathematical Gods would smile upon him.
What was supposed to be done in the span of a year, he managed to achieve in roughly 40 days. And now, he is set to compete at a third straight World Championships!
Published on Aug 27, 2025