Murali Sreeshankar (© PTI)
The first of the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23 participants has flown to Hungary from India. 24-year-old Murali Sreeshankar, who this year has only one other countryman with a higher jump, will spend three weeks in Győr and Budapest to prepare for the biggest competition of the year.
Balázs Németh, CEO of Budapest 2023 Zrt, the LOC of the World Athletics Championships, was delighted to announce at the press conference to mark the fast-approaching start of the biggest sporting event of the year that the first of the more than 2000 foreign athletes to take part in the World Champs had already arrived in Hungary. Soon afterwards, it was revealed that the first swallow, Murali Sreeshankar, had flown from India before winning the silver medal in the long jump at the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok, just four centimetres off her best, with a distance of 837 centimetres.
Balázs Németh, who took over as head of the LOC 353 days before the start of the World Athletics Championships, also said that more foreign athletes would be arriving to Hungary in the next few days, settling in at the training centres in Győr, Gödöllő, Kecskemét, Nyíregyháza and Székesfehérvár, before heading to the capital.
After the press conference, at the Olympic Park in Győr we caught the long jumper from India, who is second in the WA rankings with 841, just one centimetre behind his fellow countryman Jeswin Aldrin, but also one centimetre ahead of Yu-tang Lin from China. Sreeshankar, the jewel in the crown of his country's national elite sports development programme, will hold two training sessions a day in Győr and complete his preparations in Budapest.
He arrived with his father
The first international "delegation" is made up of just two people, as the medal-winning Indian long jumper was accompanied to Hungary only by his father, who is his coach.
Murali Sreeshankar in Győr (© Murali Sreeshankar)
"My father was a triple jumper, my mother a middle-distance runner, a silver medallist at the 1992 Junior Asian Championships, and my sister competes in heptathlon, so I grew up in a sporty environment. I was only four years old when I often accompanied my father to the track, where I did a lot of running and enjoyed the speed. That's why everyone thought I could be good at sprinting. I won the 50m and 100m at the U10 regional championships, but later I was also in competition with boys my age. At the age of thirteen I decided to become a long jumper. I've been really serious about my current discipline for seven years, and in the meantime, I graduated in mathematics from Palakkad College. My father is still my coach, and thanks to him and my supporters I am among the best in the world," said the athlete, who came to Hungary for the first time.
Asked how he expects to finish in the very strong field in Budapest, which includes defending champion Wang Jianan of China and European and Diamond League champion Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece, the Indian athlete gave an ambiguous answer.
He is preparing to improve his personal best
"I'm in good shape and since I won't have any competitions until the World Champs, I'm just working on improving my form, preparing my jumps, perfecting my approach to the plank, and also preparing mentally for the World Championships. I consider myself capable of improving my personal best of 841 centimetres, but my opponents will also be there. Whatever the outcome of the race will be, the most important thing for me is to please India and my countrymen."
Four years ago in Doha, he failed to reach the final of the World Athletics Championships, and last year in Oregon he finished seventh. He would like to do better in his third attempt.
"I would be very happy to return home with a medal. Even though I am only 24 years old, I want to use this opportunity to compete with the best in long jump all through the competition. I would like to add that this goal will probably only be achieved with a jump of 850 centimetres," concluded Murali Sreeshankar, a professional athlete and one of the athletes who are considered in India to be the great hopes for the Paris Summer Olympic Games.
source: Peter Szalay
Photo: PTI and the athlete’s own one taken in Győr
