Tejaswin Shankar breaks decathlon National Record at Wieslaw Czapiewski Memorial

Tejaswin Shankar bettered his own National Record in decathlon after finishing fourth at the Wieslaw Czapiewski Memorial with 7826 points in Poland on Sunday.

His tally of 7666 points at the 2023 Asian Games, where he won the silver medal, was the previous National Record in the discipline.

At the end of Day 1 of World Athletics Combined Events Tour Gold meeting, the Indian topped the standings after amassing 4292 points. He’d also clocked a Personal Best of 11.02s in 100m which was the first of the 10 events in the sport.

On Day 2 of the competition, Tejaswin continued to top the standings after clocking 14.63s in the 110m hurdles. However, his lead was cut short.

Despite a Season Best throw of 38.28m in discus throw, the 26-year-old dropped to third in the standings. He slipped to sixth after recording a best jump of 4.10m in pole vault, which was equal to his Personal Best in this event.

He fought back with better performances in the javelin throw and the 1500m, which was the final event of the decathlon. Tejaswin’s best throw in javelin was 52.89m and he followed it up with a Personal Best timing of 4:31.80 in the 1500m run.

Czechia’s Ondrej Kopecky (8254) and Vilem Strasky (8136) took the first and second place respectively after the end of 10 events while Estonia’s Risto Lillemets (8107) finished third.

While Tejaswin broke the National Record again, his tally is still far from the qualifying standard of 8550 points for the upcoming World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.