Xiamen Diamond League 2024: Abdulla Aboobacker secures eighth spot in triple jump
India's triple jumper Abdulla Aboobacker finished eighth in the men’s triple jump event at the Xiamen Diamond League 2024 in the People’s Republic of China on Saturday, April 20.
After securing a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham and a gold medal at the Asian Athletics Championships 2023 in Bangkok, Abdulla Aboobacker entered the Diamond League 2024 with a lot of expectations.
Interestingly, Aboobacker is the only Indian athlete competing at the first Diamond League meet of the year. He started off the event with a 15.79m mark, and later improved with a mark of 16.3m. However, he suffered two fouls in the third and fifth leaps.
Abdulla Aboobacker secured 16.33m in fourth leap
Abdulla Aboobacker's best performance of the event came in the fourth leap with a 16.33m mark. Notably, this was the 28-year-old’s second athletics competition of the year.
It’s important to note that he secured a 16.76m mark at the Indian Open Jumps Competition in Bengaluru in March 2024. Remarkably, his personal best is 17.19m, registered in 2022.
The defending Olympic champion and two-time Diamond League title winner from Portugal, Pedro Pichardo secured the top spot in the triple jump event with a meet record jump of 17.51m. He beat Cuban and Italian triple-jumper Andy Díaz’s 17.43m jump from last year’s event.
Tokyo 2020 bronze medalist Burkina Faso’s Hugues Fabrice Zango clinched the second position with a 17.12m mark, while China’s Su Wen bagged the third position with a 16.82m jump.
China's Yaoqing Fang (16.73m), Yaming Zhu (16.55m), and France's Jean-Marc Pontvianne (16.46m) registered the fourth, fifth, and sixth positions in the event.
The Xiamen Diamond League 2024 meet was the first event of the Diamond League 2024 series, which comprises 15 events, ending with the grand finals scheduled in September 2024 in Brussels.
Interestingly, a total of 13 Indian track and field athletes have secured their spots in the Paris Olympics 2024 after breaching the entry standard set for the mega event. However, Indian men’s triple jumpers are yet to touch the qualifying standard for the Paris event, set at 17.22m.