Paris Olympics: Murali Sreeshankar ruled out due to knee injury

India’s ace long jumper Murali Sreeshankar on Thursday announced that he has been ruled out of the Paris Olympics 2024 following a knee injury in training.

“I suffered a knee injury during training on Tuesday, and all tests and consultations later, it’s been decided that I would need surgery, ruling me out of the one single thing I have chased relentlessly all these years,” Sreeshankar said in a post on social media.

Sreeshankar had qualified for the Olympics with an 8.37m jump at the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok. The effort had also won him a silver medal in the event.

The Arjuna awardee was the only Indian to have secured a spot at the Summer Games. Jeswin Aldrin, who had made it to the final of the World Athletics Championships 2023, is yet to make the qualification cut off. The qualification mark for Paris 2024 in men’s long jump is 8.27m.

The 25-year-old Sreeshankar had won silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou. At the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Sreeshankar managed a best attempt of 7.69m and finished 13th, failing to make it to the final round.