Murali Sreeshankar. (AP)
Birmingham: The laser-equipped take-off board halted Indian athlete Murali Sreeshankar from hitting Gold in the Commonwealth Games 2022. He was twice flagged foul for crossing the line, but for extremely narrow margins, IANS reported.
The laser system was introduced recently while an official monitored the launch board earlier, raising a red or white flag to declare the jump foul or fair, respectively. In the new system, a laser beam detects overstepping of the jumper.
Athletics Federation of India (AFI) president Adille Sumariwalla said, "The laser beam is very sensitive and could be triggered by an athlete's foot overstepping by even a millimetre. It was introduced for the first time at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in March this year and had caused an uproar as the participants were not happy with some of the narrow margins that were flagged as foul."
Sumariwalla is also a jury member in the tournament.
On Thursday, the new system signalled two of Murali Sreeshankar's jumps foul, and this has shocked him. "I was very surprised by the narrow margin by which I was shown to have crossed the line. It was too small a margin," Sreeshankar, the Kerala-based athlete, said.
The system noted that his fourth jump was a millimetre across the line and declared it illegal, but he had hit 8.30 metres.
His sixth and last jump also turned out illegal due to narrow margins, thus denying the 23-year-old the gold medal. What he needed was to surpass 7.94 metres while he had hit 8.30 in a jump adjudged foul.
Notably, the winner of Gold in the item, Laquan Nairn of Bahamas, also jumped foul in his last attempt.