Jeswin Aldrin finishes third in men's long jump at Belgrade Indoor Meeting 

Indian long jumper Jeswin Aldrin secured third place in the men's long jump event at the Belgrade Indoor Meeting held at the Atletska Dvorana on Wednesday, February 14.

Despite committing four out of six attempts as fouls, a season-best jump of 7.83m in the fourth attempt was enough to finish third in the Silver level series of the World Athletics Indoor Tour.

Jeswin's first jump recorded 7.51m before two jumps on either side of his season-best performance. Serbia's Strahinja Jovancevic (7.87m) and Lazar Anic (7.83m) took home one-two spots.

Meanwhile, Jeswin Aldrin has managed to better his performance with each event passing. He finished second at the World Athletics Tour Silver event in France last week, with his best jump being 7.74.

In the World Athletics Indoor Tour Challenger Level Category D, the Tamil Nadu athlete ended in third place with the best leap of 7.70m.

He needs to be wary of the surging fouls with just six of them coming in the last two meets. His recent attempts this season haven’t been anywhere closer to his national record of the 8.42m he achieved at the second Indian Open Jumps Competition in Bellary.

How can Jeswin Aldrin qualify for Paris Olympics?

The Mudalur-born Jeswin Aldrin needs to mark a massive jump of 8.27m to earn a standard entry into the Paris Olympics.

Despite going past over 8.20m four times in 2022, Jeswin went through a rough patch which saw him being sidelined for the Commonwealth Games 2022. He made a comeback with a gold medal at the CITIUS Meeting in Bern, Switzerland, last year in August with a leap of 8.22m.

Meanwhile, Murali Sreeshankar has bagged a quota for the Paris Olympics with a silver medal at the Asian Athletics Championship 2023 following a jump of 8.37m. At the Asian Games 2022 in Hangzhou, the Kerala athlete marked 8.19m to bag the silver medal.

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