Asian Athletics Championships: Murali Sreeshankar wins silver, secures berth in Paris Olympics 2024

Long jumper Murali Sreesankar is in scintillating form in 2023, and on Saturday, at the ongoing Asian Athletics Championships, Sreesankar lived up to expectations as the 24-year-old from Palakkad not only won the silver medal with a massive jump of 8.37m. In his sixth attempt, he also secured a place in the Paris Olympics 2024.

At the post-competition press conference, Sreeshankar highlighted what went well for him and also discussed the things that have changed since a tough performance at the Lausanne Diamond League in June, in which the weather inspired Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS) played an important role in weakening it. Jumper performance.

Speaking about their preparation and performance in the competition, Sreeshankar said, “All other jumpers in the competition have not competed for the last two months. They are mainly preparing for the Asian Championships. Had a good time, and I just came from Switzerland last week. Having said that, Yu Tang Lin’s jump of 8.40 was also a surprise for me, but in such big competitions I have to keep my composure, and I believe Well done. Strong jump on my 6th attempt.”

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Taking the conversation to strategy, Sreeshankar said, “It all depends on the warm-up. To warm up the body, we have to spend a lot of time, but at the same time, it should not affect our fitness. ” If we warm up too much, we won’t have enough energy to last the sixth jump. In Lausanne, it was cold and windy. Anyway, big jumps weren’t possible, so 8m or 8.10 would definitely be a long jump. Even Tantoglu was jumping 8-8.10. This season has taught me to adapt to different weather conditions. When I landed in Bangkok last week, it was very hot and humid, and I bought huge water bottles to keep my hydration constant. I coordinated with my nutritionist at Inspire Institute of Sport to make sure I was taking in enough fluids and staying hydrated. The main aspect of today’s performance was the warm-up. We strategised really well for the final, but if I had got that distance, things could have been different in the first three jumps.”


Sreeshankar’s season’s longest jump has been 8.41m, achieved by the Commonwealth Games silver medalist in the inter-state national competition, which helped him qualify for the Asian Games. Going a step ahead, Sreeshankar also broke the Paris Olympics qualification mark of 8.27m, ushering in a long preparation period for the 2024 season.

“I thought the winning distance would be 8.20-25m. I knew the Chinese Taipei jumper was there, and there was another guy who had a season’s best of 8.22. Our first target was to get the Olympic qualifying mark of 8.27 because I was very Nice to have done well in training in Switzerland last week. When we checked the weather in Thailand, it was also hot and humid, and the coach said it was very possible. Considering the fact that I won the Paris Olympics Qualified for 2024, I am very happy, relieved, and I will start my 2024 season very late. I will probably start only in May/June. So, I have good time to prepare in off-season The Asian Games will end in the first week of October and after rest and recovery, I will be able to start my training by the first or second week of November. I need a solid time to prepare for the Olympics,” he said.

In the end, Sreesankar recalled the fact that after the last jump, he almost thought it was definitely over 8.45m and he had broken his personal best as well as the national record.

“When I saw my last jump, I definitely thought it was above 8.45 because it was very close to the 8.50 mark, and I thought it was a winning jump, but unfortunately we missed. Overall, it Really a good competition. In the last jump, I was taking off a lot from the back of the board, mostly just touching it. I knew today would be a good day to jump as the weather was similar to Bhubaneswar and my body Reacts very well to hot and humid conditions, and we did it very well. We were able to program the warm-up very well today. We didn’t lose much energy, and we were able to do it for the duration of the competition were able to preserve for, which was about two hours,” he concluded.