Tejaswin Shankar begins season with high jump gold in Belgium

National record holder Tejaswin Shankar kickstarted his season with a gold medal in the high jump at the International High Jump Gala Elmos in Belgium on Saturday.

Tejaswin won the gold medal with a jump of 2.23m.

Another Indian in the fray Jesse Sandesh, however, has had a forgettable outing as he finished 10th with a jump of 2.09m, which is way lower than his personal best (2.24m).

Tejaswin entered the event as the second-best jumper based on past performances, and he started the competition with 2.09m in the first jump, which was the final mark for half of the field including fellow Indian Jesse Sandesh.

He crossed the first three huddles easily on the first attempt and earned a mark of 2.17m. At the 2.20m mark, only four athletes were remaining and three of them could cross the mark but Tejaswin failed his first attempt.

He took his time to rethink and skipped the rest two attempts and the competition went into the next jump which was set at 2.23m. Tejaswin again failed in his attempt and was placed in the fourth position.

The other three jumpers also missed all three of their attempts, and it was up to Tejaswin on his final attempt. Should he have missed that too, he would have returned home empty-handed but he showed his resilience and crossed the final huddle, jumping 2.23m and clinched the gold medal from the event.

Tejaswin decided not to push beyond this mark and ended the tournament with 2.23m, which is a good start to a long season. His next aim is to continue and better this performance and qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics in this category.