Indian Athletics Thread ...

[Saffron Lenin]

Asian games will also give an idea!!

[Atithee]

We already have the idea.

[sameerph]

Murli Sreeshankar won gold in MVA high performance meet at Chula Vista, California, USA today with a jump of 8.29M.

Murali has been training in Texas Tech University for past 1 month and this was his first international tournament this year. Great to get 8.29M in his first tournament of the year. This distance would have got a medal at both last world championships and Tokyo Olympics.

And this has come at a tournament abroad which gives it more credibility.

[sameerph]

Neeraj Chopra will starting off his 2023 season with Diamond league in Doha tomorrow. Star studded field with top 4 from last year's world championships- Andersen Peters, Neeraj, Jakub Vadlejch and Julien Weber all there.

Also competing in this diamond league is our CWG gold medalist in triple jump- Eldhose Paul. Here also all medalists from last WC are there and Paul has lowest PB of 16.99M among the start list.

So, expectation from Paul would be to do his PB or at least come close to it and for Neeraj of course to pick up a medal.

[Atithee]

At the Indian open jumps competition, in mens long jump, Jeswin Aldrin broke the national record with a jump of 8.42 m.

To put it in perspective, at Tokyo olympics gold medal went at 8.41m while gold at last world championships went at 8.36M.

So, this is a huge jump by Jeswin. Question is can he repeat this outside India ? First test will be at the Asian games where this level performance will easily win gold.

Sameer, you posted the quoted text on March 2, 2023. Where is this guy? Is he not eligible for this league? Is long jump not part of the events?

[Saffron Lenin]

I don't know if it is true or not, but one of the sports journalist of tv9 told that India could not achieve big in athletics unti we host a big tournament like Diamond league.....I don't know if India has ever hosted any big track and field event (outside asian and cwg games)

[sameerph]

At the Indian open jumps competition, in mens long jump, Jeswin Aldrin broke the national record with a jump of 8.42 m.

To put it in perspective, at Tokyo olympics gold medal went at 8.41m while gold at last world championships went at 8.36M.

So, this is a huge jump by Jeswin. Question is can he repeat this outside India ? First test will be at the Asian games where this level performance will easily win gold.

Sameer, you posted the quoted text on March 2, 2023. Where is this guy? Is he not eligible for this league? Is long jump not part of the events?

No. Long jump is not part of this diamond league. I think they chose alternate events at different diamond league events which are 13 of those spread from May 5 to September 8 and than the final on Sept 16 where all events will be there. As I see field events are in 4 of the 13 diamond leagues alternatively.

First Diamond league for mens long jump is on 9th June in Paris. I want to see if Jeswin is invited there. From what I read Murali Sreesankar is surely going to participate in diamond league events, not heard about Jeswin.

[sameerph]

So, expectation from Paul would be to do his PB or at least come close to it and for Neeraj of course to pick up a medal.

Elhose Paul ends with a 15.84M jump much below his PB which is near 17M.

Javelin starts in 15 or so minutes.

[sameerph]

Neeraj starts with a world leading mark of 88.67M. In the lead after first round. World champ Anderson second with 85.88, Vadlejch ( Olympic silver and world bronze medalist) third with 85.51M.

[sameerph]

Neeraj with throws of 86.04M and 85.47M in second and third throws. Still in the lead with 88.67M after 3 throws but Vadlejch closes in with a throw of 88.63M, Anderson third with 85.88M.

[sameerph]

Foul, 84.37 and 86.62 in last 3 attempts. But, that first throw of 88.67M enough for him to win the title here.

3 medalists from last year's world championships repeated here but order is different- Anderson goes to #3 from #1 and Neeraj and Vadlejch move up a spot each to #1 and #2.

Good start to the season for Neeraj.

[arjun2761]

Amazing consistency by Neeraj against the top competition!! Good to see that he has the best distance YTD.

[sameerph]

3 new national records today in Athletics.

In Men's Triple Jump, Praveen Chithravel created new NR with a 17.37m (-1.5 m/s) jump in Havana, Cuba meet.

And in a meet in USA,

In Men's 5000m, Avinash Sable rewrote his own NR with 13:19.30

In Women's 5000m, Parul Chaudhary created NR with 15:10.35 breaking 10 year old record of Preeja Sridharan,

[jayakris]

Hmmm... That is great news! Three national records in one day?? Not Indian events, so it wasn't "home tapes/clocks" doing this.

[sameerph]

Yes, this coming outside India is important. Just to clarify the meet in which Avinash Sable and Parul Chaudhary created national records was a recognized as World Athletics Continental Tour silver level event. While that where Praveen Chithravel had that huge jump in Cuba was not really an official World athletics recognized event. So, there can be some caveat on that performance.

However, since last olympics ( where Neeraj won our first ever medal in Athletica in olympics) there is perceptible uptick in our performance in athletics and many of these performances have come outside India.