High jumper Tejaswin Shankar wins season-opening meet in Belgium

High jump national record holder Tejaswin Shankar won the top prize in the International High Jump Gala Elmos 2024 athletics meet in Heist-op-den-Berg, Belgium, with a leap of 2.23 metres.

Shankar, competing for the first time since October last year, finished ahead of Greece’s Antonios Merlos (2.20 metres) in the World Athletics Indoor Tour Challenger event on Saturday.

The 25-year-old, who holds both the men’s high jump and decathlon national records, however, could not better his personal best of 2.29m.

Shankar is also focusing on decathlon and had won bronze and silver in the discipline in the Asian Championships and Asian Games last year.

Shankar has trained his eyes on a Paris Olympics berth but for that he will have to achieve a qualifying standard of 2.33 metres.

The other Indian in fray, Jesse Sandesh, finished joint-10th with a jump of 2.09 metres.

Shankar will next be seen in action at the Hvezdy v Nehvizdech athletics meet in Nehvizdy, Czech Republic, on February 20.