Despite the heat and humidity, India’s best high jumper wins the decathlon in the inter-state athletics tournament; a triple jumper from Karnataka fractures his leg on the runway.
Tejaswin Shankar broke the Asian Games qualification mark (7500 points) in the final 1500m of the inter-state athletics competition on Saturday after participating in nine events over two days in terrible heat and humidity.
Shankar said that he was behind on the first day, even in events where he excels (100m, long jump, shot throw, high jump, and 400m). As a result, he pushed harder in throws and pole vault, where he generally trailed. To meet the mark, he needed to run the 1500m in less than 4 minutes and 40 seconds, according to his calculations. He finished in 4 minutes, 38.49 seconds.
“I simply want to thank everyone who took part for pushing me. I couldn’t have finished the race without their help. Most essential, I needed to run faster than 4:40 to meet the criterion. Everyone banded together and said, “We’ll help.” Throughout the race, one athlete was with me to push me. So it’s a win for everyone of them,” Shankar explained.
The 24-year-old was competing in India for the first time in a long time. The Commonwealth Games bronze medalist in high jump is back after finishing his studies in the United States. For two days at the Kalinga Stadium, he was the focus, trying to qualify for an event that is not well-known in India.
Shankar is new to decathlon but came close to surpassing Bharatinder Singh’s 2011 national record of 7,658 points. Shankar scored 7648 points at this year’s Jim Click Shootout in Arizona. However, his participation in the Asian Championships in Pattaya was contingent on his performance at the Inter-State meet. Because of the “horrendous” heat, he even tweeted on Saturday that decathletes should be assessed by more than simply a score.
