It has been a season of highs for Murali Sreeshankar. There is a spring in his jumps.
Just days after winning silver at the Commonwealth Games, Sreeshankar was back in the heat of battle, making his Diamond League debut in Monaco against the world’s best. He has been waiting to compete in the premier event since visa issues forced him to pull out of the Stockholm Diamond League before the World Championships.
It was a tough field of 10 long jumpers led by Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece, and a headwind didn’t help the jumpers to start with. Four of them had a personal best that was better than Sreeshankar’s 8.36m. Olympic bronze medallist Maykel Masso, former world champion Tayjay Gayle and world indoor silver medallist Thobias Montler were all in the fray.
Competing in his first Diamond League event, Sreeshankar opened with 7.61m and improved to 7.84m in his second attempt with a jump of 7.83m coming in his third attempt. After three jumps, he managed to squeeze in as eighth placed to get to take the series of next three jumps. The fourth attempt was 7.69m and his best of 7.94m came next. The 8m never came in the Monaco night as he finished sixth.
The tone was already set by Masso who started with 8.04m and a big 8.35m in his second attempt saw him maintain first place after three jumps, which stood till the end. Tentoglou, the most consistent of the competition, raised the heat with 8.27m in his second try and touched 8.31m in his third. He took second place. Dendy Marquis of US also had an 8.31m in his third attempt but was placed third. Gayle finished fourth with 8.06m as his best on his fourth attempt.
Notwithstanding the result, it will serve as good experience for Sreeshankar, who has been impressive this year. At the World Championships in Eugene, he qualified for the final with 8m, though he was seventh in the final (7.96m).
The Commonwealth Games silver was a big boost. He came under immense pressure when he could not touch 8m in the first three jumps and was lying sixth in Birmingham. His fourth jump was ruled a foul by the smallest of margins. He bounced back with a jump of 8.08m to equal Bahamas leader LaQuan Nairn, but ended up in second place as the former had a better second jump. Sreeshankar became only India’s fourth long-jump medallist at the Commonwealth Games.
After the Tokyo Olympics, where he failed to make the final cut, Sreeshankar has comeback well this season. Along with his father S Murali, new foreign coach, Russian Denis Kapustin, the 2000 Sydney Olympics triple jump bronze medallist, has been assisting him at the national camp in Bengaluru. Sreeshankar has a had series of 8-plus jumps in domestic meets with personal best of 8.36m at the Federation Cup.