Nagoya, Sep 27 (SocialNews.XYZ) India's Murali Sreeshankar and David Patturaj have qualified for the men's long jump final from their respective groups at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026 here on Sunday.
The two Indian athletes were among the 12 long jumpers to make their way into the final, which will take place on Monday at the Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium. Sreeshankar, the Hangzhou Games silver medallist, registered his best jump of 7.84m and was second in Group B, while Patturaj was third in Group A with his best leap of 7.62m.
In the overall qualification, Sreeshankar was second while Patturaj was seventh. The automatic jump mark for the final qualification was 7.90m; however, only Uzbekistan's Anvar Anvarov managed to breach that mark when he leapt to a distance of 8.00m. All the other 11 athletes qualified on the merit of being the next best in the qualifications.
Sreeshankar would be eyeing a second medal after winning a silver last time around. He has made a successful comeback from a career-threatening patellar tendon rupture, which he suffered in April 2024 and missed the 2024 Olympics.
He made a return after nearly 650 days at the 65th National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships 2026 and has been doing well. He won a silver medal for India at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in July.
Meanwhile, there was more joy for the Indian athletes in the ongoing Games. Vithya Ramraj and Anu Raghavan have qualified for the Women's 400m hurdles. Vithya finished second in her heat with a time of 55.73s to make her way into the final, while Raghavan clocked a Personal Best of 55.84 to make her way into the final. The Women's 400m hurdles final will take place on Monday.
Elsewhere, India's decathlon star Tejaswin Shankar dropped down to the third spot after seven events at the ongoing Games. Tejaswin has 5869 points with three events remaining and is 50 points behind leader Chen Xinghua and 45 behind Japan's Yuma Maruyama, who is placed second.
Earlier, in the Kurash events, Indian athletes bowed out in early rounds. Vishal lost his men’s +90kg quarter-finals to Thailand's Kunathip Yea-On after going down 5-0.
Source: IANS
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