Tejas Shirse wins 110m hurdles silver in Geneva, Shaili misses podium finish

Tejas Shirse bagged a silver medal in men's 110m hurdles at the Atletica Geneva EAP, a World Athletics Continental Tour (Bronze level) meet, in Geneva, Switzerland, on Saturday.

The 21-year-old national record holder clocked 13.60s to finish second behind Colombia's John Paredes, who clinched the gold medal with a timing of 13.49s.

Meanwhile, Shaili Singh missed a women's long jump podium finish by a whisker. Shaili and Jogaile Petrokaite were joint third with both athletes at level with 6.33m jumps.

In the tiebreaker, their second-best jumps were compared where the Lithuanian Jogaile (6.30m) edged Shaili (6.28m).

Switzerland's Annik Kalin won the gold medal with her best effort of 6.56m.

Earlier this week, Shaili won a silver medal at the JBL Jump Fest in Kosice, Slovakia, on Thursday. However, the World Athletics marked all the results as UNC (uncertified) without any explanation. As a result, the points earned from the event would not be added to her Road to Paris Olympics rankings.

Both Tejas and Shaili will compete at the National Inter-State Athletics Championships in Panchkula from June 27 to 30 which is the final qualifying event for Indian athletes for the Paris Olympics.

A total of 40 athletes will compete in the Paris Olympics. So far 22 hurdlers have qualified for the Olympics through the qualifying mark, while the remaining 17 athletes will qualify through rankings. Tejas is currently ranked 61st in the Road to Paris Rankings.

While for men's 110m hurdles, the automatic qualification mark for the Olympics has been set at 13.27s, for women’s long jump, the automatic qualification mark is 6.86.

To earn a direct entry, Shaili will have to break the national record (6.83m) of Anju Bobby George. Shaili's best is 6.76m. A total of 32 athletes will qualify for the women's long jump event, and Shaili is currently ranked 46th.