Spotlight on promising long jumper Shaili Singh
Bengaluru:
Spotlight during the one-day third edition of the Indian Open Jumps Competition scheduled to be held Wednesday at Anju Bobby High Performance Center in Bengaluru will be on 20 years old Shaili Singh.
Being an Olympic year the world U20 silver medalist in women’s long jump has specific goals set this year. It is too early to expect outstanding performance nonetheless we are hoping for a good result, otherwise it will be a challenging task to earn a ticket to Diamond League competitions,” Shaili’s personal coach Robert Bobby George said on the eve of the outdoor domestic competition.
According to the national long jump coach, the first domestic competition in Bengaluru on Wednesday will be all about evaluation of performance and how to move forward in the right direction to win a ticket to the Paris Olympic Games. “We have set specific goals for each competition for Shaili Singh,” the long jump coach said.
Shaili has a personal best of 6.76m recorded last year in April in Bengaluru. While she finished fifth at the Hangzhou Asian Games with a jump of 6.48m.
The women’s long jump event in Bengaluru has attracted nine competitors including Nayana James of Kerala.
The focus will also be on men’s triple jump. Birmingham Commonwealth Games champion Eldhose Paul, Karthik U and Abdulla Aboobacker, all from Kerala, will commence their season with Bengaluru competition and will be looking ahead for a good performance.
Praveen Chithravel who holds the national record of 17.37m recorded last year will skip the competition. While promising Tamil Nadu triple jumper Selva Prabhu will compete in the U20 age group. His personal best and NR record of 16.78m was recorded last year.
High jumper Jesse Sandesh of Karnataka and long jump Muhammed Anees will be other prominent athletes in action at the 3rd Indian Open Jumps Competition tomorrow in Bengaluru.