Indian Open Jumps meet: Abdulla Aboobacker and Nayana James claim significant wins
The third Indian Open Jumps Competition witnessed memorable performances on Wednesday, March 20, from some of the country's leading athletes. The one-day event took place at the Anju Bobby George High Performance Center in Bengaluru.
Abdulla Aboobacker and Eldhose Paul were the leading attractions at the meet in the triple jump event. Aboobacker emerged as the champion with a jump of 16.76 meters on his very first attempt, while Paul took silver with a leap of 16.45 meters. The bronze went to Selva Prabhu, a U20 World Championship medalist. He had a distance of 16.32 meters.
The long jump competition was shorn of the two biggest names in the country - Murali Sreeshankar and Jeswin Aldrin. This allowed Muhammad Anees Yahiya from Kerala to claim gold in the event, with a jump of 7.94 meters.
The silver went to Aditya Kumar Singh of Madhya Pradesh who clocked a distance of 7.78 meters. Delhi's Vishnu Siva Shankar took bronze with 7.50 meters.
These numbers from Yahiya and Aditya were good enough for the meet but not for Olympic qualification. The mark to qualify for Paris 2024 is 8.22 meters, far from what the winner managed.
In the high jump competition, Jesse Sandesh of Karnataka took gold with a height of 2.20 meters. He was followed by Aadarsh Ram and Swadhin Kumar Majhi of Tamil Nadu and Odisha, respectively.
The men's pole vault event was won by M Gowtham of Tamil Nadu with a clearance height of 5.10 meters. His statemate Reegan G took silver while bronze went to Shekhar Kumar Pandey of Uttar Pradesh.
Women's events at the Indian Open Jumps meet
In the women's events, the spotlight was taken by Nayana James of Kerala as she won gold in the long jump event. Her achieved distance of 6.67 meters wasn't record-shattering but earned her a personal best.
The pole vault title in the women's event went to Tamil Nadu's Pavithra Venkatesh as she achieved a clearance of 4.15 meters. It is worth remembering that Pavithra suffered a major setback last month when she failed to participate in the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships because no proper arrangements had been made to transport her poles to Tehran.