Asian Games: Sreeshankar, Patturaj qualify for Men’s long jump final
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Nagoya: India’s Murali Sreeshankar and David Patturaj qualified for the men’s long jump final from their respective groups at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026 here on Sunday.
The two Indians were among the 12 long jumpers who advanced to the final, scheduled to be held on Monday at the Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium.
Sreeshankar, the Hangzhou Games silver medallist, registered a best jump of 7.84m to finish second in Group B, while Patturaj placed third in Group A with a best effort of 7.62m.
In the overall qualification standings, Sreeshankar finished second and Patturaj seventh.
The automatic qualification mark was set at 7.90m, but only Uzbekistan’s Anvar Anvarov cleared the mark, recording a jump of 8.00m. The other 11 athletes qualified based on their performances as the next-best jumpers.
Sreeshankar will be aiming for a second Asian Games medal after winning silver at the previous edition. He has made a successful comeback from a career-threatening patellar tendon rupture suffered in April 2024, which forced him to miss the 2024 Olympics.
He returned to competition after nearly 650 days at the 65th National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships 2026 and has continued to perform well. He also won a silver medal for India at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in July.
Meanwhile, India had more success in athletics as Vithya Ramraj and Anu Raghavan qualified for the women’s 400m hurdles final.
Vithya finished second in her heat in 55.73 seconds to advance, while Raghavan clocked a personal best of 55.84 seconds to secure her place in the final. The women’s 400m hurdles final will be held on Monday.
Elsewhere, India’s decathlon star Tejaswin Shankar dropped to third place after seven events. He has accumulated 5,869 points with three events remaining and trails leader Chen Xinghua by 50 points and Japan’s Yuma Maruyama, who is second, by 45 points.
Earlier, Indian athletes bowed out in the early rounds of the Kurash events. Vishal lost his men’s +90kg quarterfinal to Thailand’s Kunathip Yea-On by a 5-0 margin.
With IANS inputs