Murali Sreeshankar wins silver medal at Asian Athletics Championships, qualifies for Paris Olympics

Indian long-jumper Murali Sreeshankar clinched a silver medal at the ongoing Asian Athletics Championships 2023 in Bangkok on Saturday (July 15).

Sreeshankar - who hails from Kerala's Palakkad - jumped 8.37 meters in the finals at the 25th Asian Athletics Championships to finish the podium. Chinese Taipei's Lin Yu Tang claimed the gold medal in the competition with a jump of 8.40m in the final. It was a personal best jump for Yu Tang.

It was the second-best jump of the season for the 24-year-old and with that, the athlete also qualified for the Paris Olympics 2024. His personal best is 8.41m but this 8.37m in Bangkok is his biggest jump ever in a big-ticket competition.

How Murali Sreeshankar Qualified for Paris 2024

Sreeshankar - who bagged a silver medal for India in the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham - had sub-8 jumps in all his attempts in the final. He had jumps of 8.10m, 8.12m, 8.11m, 8.13m and 8.37m from the six attempts. His second attempt was deemed as a foul.

The qualification mark for the Paris Olympics is 8.27m and the qualification period started on July 1.

Sreeshankar qualified for the Budapest World Championships in August with his career-best and world-second-ranked jump of 8.41m. He qualified for Budapest during the qualification round of the Inter-State Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar, last month.

Soon after, India clinched their sixth medal on day four of the ongoing continental competition when the mixed 4x400m relay with Rajesh Ramesh, Amoj Jacob, Aishwarya Mishra and Subha Venkatesan secured a gold.

Subha Venkatesh ran the all-important final lap and surpassed Japan's Nanako Matsumoto on the final stretch to help India win the yellow medal at 3:14.70 seconds. This performance will bode well for the mixed relay team at the Asian Games 2023 in Hangzhou, China.