It has rather been a historic day for India and Indian athletes at the World Athletics Championship. Javelin throwers Neeraj Chopra and Rohit Yadav were the first ones to qualify for the finals that will be played on Sunday. On the other hand, another athlete has a scripted history for India. Athlete Eldhose Paul has become the first Indian man to qualify for the 12-athlete final after finishing 12th overall.
Paul who was placed in Group A registered his personal best jump of 16.99m at the Federation Cup earlier this year. Apart from Paul, the two other Indians who are a part of this contest are Praveen Chithravel, in Group A, and Abdulla Aboobacker in Group B but they couldn't make it through to the finals.
Chitravel registered the best leap of 16.49m and finished in the 17th spot and on the other hand, Abdulla Aboobacker managed 16.45m and finished in the 19th spot out of the 28 competitors. It can be said that both these athletes underperformed as Chithravel has a personal best of 17.18m which he attained at the National Inter State Senior Athletics Championships in Chennai and Abdulla Aboobacker’s best is 17.19m which he registered at the Indian Grand Prix in Bhubaneswar.
The winner of the Tokyo Olympics 2021 Pedro Pichardo topped the qualification chart as he finished with an attempt of 17.16m attempt. The qualifying mark for triple jump finals was set at 17.05m or at least 12 best performers.
