Tejaswin Shankar wins USATF Festival high jump gold with season-best effort

Tejaswin Shankar, on Sunday, won the men's high jump event at the USATF Festival in Tucson, Arizona, USA.

National record holder Tejaswin cleared 2.23m in his first attempt to win the event at the World Athletics Continental Tour - Silver event. With this jump, he equalled his season-best effort. However, it was short of his personal best of 2.29m achieved in April 2018.

Meanwhile, Sarvesh Kushare cleared 2.13m to finish fifth.

This was Tejaswin's fifth event of the year and his first of this month.

Focus on qualifying for Paris Olympics

The Hangzhou Asian Games silver medallist in decathlon, Tejaswin has been focussing on his pet event, the high jump, this year with an eye on the Paris 2024 Olympics. The qualifying mark for the 2024 Paris Olympics is set at 2.33m.

This year, his season best is 2.23m which he first achieved in Belgium in February, when he, competing for the first time since October 2023, won the World Athletics Indoor Tour Challenger event at the International High Jump Gala Elmos 2024 athletics meet in Heist-op-den-Berg.

However, he could not go past his SB in the last three events where he competed. Hence, this performance in the USA is a sign of the improvement that he has made.

The Commonwealth Games bronze medallist topped the event ahead of Earnie Sears and Roberto Vilches.

This was, meanwhile, Tejaswin's second high jump gold in the USA in 2024 as he won the Shocker Spring Invitational at the Cessna Stadium, Wichita, Kansas City in March.