At the start of the day one would have expected Avinash Sable to make the Semifinals and atleast one if not two Triple Jumpers to enter the Finals. None happened
In what was expected to be a great curtain raiser for India at the Budapest world Athletics Championships came up as a disaster for Sable.
Heat 1 Sable was running in top five till 1100m while in between he was at the second place too in a tight slow race. At the 1800m mark he crawled back to top four after going as low as eighth. It was looking comfortable for Sable till 200m to go but then he was taken over by competitors and eventually finished the race at 7th place with a time of 8:22.24
With only the first five to make the semifinal and no fastest loser spot it was all over for Sable. He was well short of his season best 8:11.63 but can’t really compare as it was a middles distance slow paced race.
Not much was expected from the race walkers in the 20km race walk. Vikash was the fastest with a 1:21:58 for a 27th place while Paramjeet did a 1:24:02 for a 35th place. Akashdeep who was the Asian medal winner finished last with 1:31:12.
Shaili Impressed on Debut
After disappointing couple of events all eyes were on Shaili Singh. The teenager who was making the debut at the grand stage started off with a decent 6.26m
In her second attempt she improved to 6.40m but she knew that for a place in Final it needs to be much more. Given that pressure she came up with a 6.30m to be placed at 24th overall.
Interestingly her personal best is 6.76 which would have been good enough to take her to Finals. This is a big learning curve for the youngster who was accompanied by none other than Anju Bobby George.
The evening session started of with Ajay Saroj who ran the fastest race in probably the biggest stage of his life. His personal best before the race was 3:39.19 which he bettered of to 3:38.24 to finish 13th. He didn’t make it to Finals but to perform your best at the World Championships stage speaks volumes.
Triple Jumpers Disappointed
Given the way the day had turned out to be for Indians, the three Triple Jumpers were a ray of hope. First up was Eldhose and he came up with a mediocre 15.59m which happened to be his best effort.
Praveen started of with a 16.38m and then remained in that range for the next two attempts as well.
Abdulla looked like the only hope as he jumped to 16.61 but despite effort he couldn’t better it and eventually couldn’t make it to Finals by 10cm
India results for the day
