Madhvendra Shekhawat equals Tejas Shirse's 60m hurdles national record

Indian hurdler Madhvendra Shekhawat had a brilliant outing at the Big Sky Indoor Championships, winning the title by equalling the men's 60m hurdles national record in Arizona, USA, on Saturday.

Madhvendra clocked the timing of 7.64s to level the national record of Tejas Shirse, who registered that record earlier this year in France.

Madhvendra is consistently improving his personal best in every passing event. His previous personal best was 7.68s, which he clocked in an indoor meet on 14th February in Seattle, USA.

Madhvendra started the event by topping his heat-2 with a timing of 7.79s. He then further improved it by a big margin of 0.15s to clinch the title ahead of Jamaica's meet record holder Jerome Campbell (7.65s).

Madhvendra, however, could not breach the qualifying mark (7.57s) for the World Indoor Championships, which is scheduled to take place in China from March 21 to 23.

This performance will help him gain some good ranking points, which could help him qualify as there are 48 quota places in this event, and so far, only 17 athletes have breached the set standard.

India hasn't earned a single qualifying mark for the coming World Indoor Championships, but three hurdlers – Madhvendra, Tejas Shirse, and Jyothi Yarraji are in close distance based on the top Top Performance List.

The final qualification date for the World Indoors is the 9th of March, 2025.