IMAGE: Murali Sreeshankar has already qualified for the Paris Olympics. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters
Three Indians will take the track at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, on Wednesday.
Murali Sreeshankar and Jeswin Aldrin will be in action during long jump qualification in the morning session, while Parul Chaudhary will step on track for 3000m steeplechase heats in the evening.
India have big hopes from Sreeshankar and Jeswin Aldrin.
In the Paris Diamond League in June, Sreeshankar secured a creditable third place with a jump of 8.09m, his maiden top-three finish in the prestigious one-day meeting series.
On July 15, The 24-year-old Sreeshankar became the first Indian track and field athlete to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics after winning a silver medal in the Asian Athletics Championships with a second career-best effort of 8.37m in Bangkok.
Earlier this month, world’s season leader long jumper Jeswin Aldrin produced his best performance in five months as he cleared 8.22m to win gold in the CITIUS Meeting in Bern, Switzerland.
However, disappointments from Indian athletes continues on Tuesday — national record holder 100m hurdler Jyothi Yarraji failed to qualify for the semifinals of the World Athletics Championships as she finished seventh in her heat.
The 23-year-old Yarraji clocked 13.05 seconds — well below her national record of 12.78s — to finish seventh in heat number four and 29th overall.
The first four finishers in each of the five heats and the four other fastest athletes (24 in total) qualified for the semifinals.
Indian athletes have disappointed so far in the world championships.
On the opening day on Saturday, national record holder 3000m steeplechaser Avinash Sable failed to qualify for the final round after finishing a disappointing seventh in his heat race.
Three Indians brought up the rear in the men’s 20km race walk final while young Shaili Singh also failed to make it to the women’s long jump final.
Ajay Kumar Saroj ran his personal best of three minutes 38.24 seconds in men’s 1500m heats but that was not enough to qualify for the semifinals, while none of the three Indians in the men’s triple jump — Praveen Chithravel, Eldhose Paul and Abdulla Aboobacker — made it to the final round.
On Sunday, Santhosh Kumar Tamilarasan and Sarvesh Anil Kushare had crashed out in the 400m hurdles heat race and high jump qualification round respectively.
