Sreeshankar Murali finished third at the long jump event of the Paris Diamond League 2022. He's the third Indian to finish in the top-3 of a Diamond League meet after the inimitable Neeraj Chopra (also the first Indian to win a DL meet, and indeed a DL trophy) and discus thrower Vikas Gowda.
Sreeshankar jumped a best of 8.09m, well below his personal best of 8.36m; but the margin to the top wasn't too high. In fact, Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou (of Greece) jumped 8.13m to take top honours, while World Championships bronze medalist Simon Ehammer (of Switzerland) finished second with a jump of 8.11m. Just 4cms, then, separated the top three. Reigning Olympic bronze medalist Maykel Masso (of Cuba) finished sixth with a best jump of 7.83m.
Sreeshankar, who had won silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, started slow with two below-8m jumps of 7.79m and 7.94m However, his second jump was enough to take him to the third spot and he never went below that as those below him struggled to hit their stride. The Indian jumped his best, 8.09m, in his third attempt; at which point he was top of the table. Ehammer, though, hit 8.11m in the fourth attempt and Tentoglou hit 8.13m in the fifth. Sreeshankar fouled his fourth and sixth attempts and hit 7.99m in his fifth attempt.
He was the only Indian at the Paris DL meet, with Neeraj (who won the javelin in the Doha DL) sitting out as he nurses an injury. This was just his second appearance at a DL meet. Last year, in Monaco, he had finished sixth with a jump of 7.94m.
The Paris DL saw multiple world records broken across various events - with Kenya's Faith Kipyegon breaking the 5000m WR with a run of 14:05.20. She had earlier beaten the 1500m WR just last week. In an incredible display, Ethiopa's Lamecha Girma obliterated the field in the 3000m steeplechase with a WR run of 7:52.11. Such was his dominance that he finished nearly 17 seconds ahead of the second-placed finisher. Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen created a new 2-mile WR with a run of 7:54.10.
Meanwhile, Sreeshankar will now return to India for the Inter-State meet to take place in Bhubaneswar next week after a fine international stint where he also won meets in Greece and the United States of America. He will renew the duel with Jeswin Aldrin, who took away his national record with an 8.42m jump earlier this year in March. While Jeswin has already achieved the qualification standard, Sreeshankar will hope to hit the 8.25m mark set for World Championship qualification.