Published on: Aug 27, 2025 09:56 pm IST
The 26-year-old returned to action only in July, after being out of action for more than a year due to a tendon injury.
New Delhi: Long jumper Murali Sreeshankar has made the cut for the Tokyo World Championships after some impressive performances on the home stretch following his injury comeback.
The 2022 Commonwealth Games silver medallist, who is making a comeback after knee surgery, competed in five events in the last six weeks. He won three of them with jumps of over 8 metres. Though Sreeshankar could not meet the direct entry standard of 8.27m — he fell just short at the Continental meet in Bhubaneswar (8.13m) — the seasoned jumper collected enough points to sneak into the top 36 in the Road to Tokyo rankings.
He is the 36th and last jumper in rankings to make the World Championships in Tokyo, which will be held from September 13 to 21. He was just a point ahead of Erwan Konate of France and Juan Miguel Echevarria of Cuba at the August 24 cut off date.
The 26-year-old returned to action only in July, after being out of action for more than a year due to a tendon injury for which he underwent surgery. He could not compete at the Paris Olympics due to the injury.
Sreeshankar, who made his comeback at the Indian Open, won with a jump of 8.05m. He then competed in two meets, in Portugal and Kazakhstan, clearing a modest 7.75m and 7.94m respectively. At the World Athletics Continental bronze level meet in Bhubaneswar, he just about missed the entry standard but won gold with an 8.13m jump.
At the Inter-State Championships in Chennai which ended on Sunday and was the last event before the qualification window closed, Sreeshankar won the title with 8.06m. He needed a minimum of five competitions to make the cut through rankings and did exactly that, earning a total of 1196 points.
