Tejas Shirse Tests Himself Against the World’s Best at Miramas as Focus Shifts to Asian Indoor Championships

India’s national record holder in the men’s 60m hurdles, Tejas Shirse, continued his European indoor campaign with a competitive outing at the Elite Indoor Track Miramas Meeting 2026 in France, finishing 14th overall in a high-quality international field that included some of the fastest hurdlers on the global circuit.

Shirse clocked 7.95 seconds in the heats and followed it up with 8.03 seconds in Final B, placing sixth in that race. While the times were some way off his national record of 7.64 and his season best of 7.87, the Miramas meeting was never about chasing a single performance. It was about exposure, rhythm, and learning in the kind of elite field that Indian hurdlers rarely get to test themselves against.

The Miramas meeting is one of Europe’s premier indoor track events, drawing athletes who are either already world class or on the cusp of breaking through. This year’s field in the 60m hurdles was headlined by Lorenzo Ndele Simonelli of Italy, the 2024 World Indoor Championships silver medallist, a hurdler who regularly runs in the mid-7.40s and represents the standard Shirse aspires to match in the years ahead.

For Shirse, simply lining up alongside such names is part of a carefully planned development pathway. Indoor hurdling is a specialist discipline, where race rhythm, block starts, and the ability to clear five tightly spaced hurdles at maximum velocity often separate the best from the rest. Competing in Europe through the winter allows Shirse to accumulate precisely this kind of experience.

Coming into Miramas, Shirse had opened his 2026 indoor season only a week earlier at the Orlen Cup in Łódź, where he ran 7.87 seconds, his season best. That race was encouraging, showing that he was moving in the right direction after the off-season. Miramas, however, presented a deeper and faster field, and the Indian found himself under greater pressure from the opening gun.

His 7.95 in the heats was enough to place him into Final B rather than the top-tier Final A, which was stacked with athletes who had already been running under 7.70 this season. In Final B, Shirse again struggled to find the cleanest rhythm over the hurdles and crossed in 8.03 seconds, leaving him sixth in that final and 14th overall.

These are not the times he ultimately wants to run, but they are part of the learning curve of racing repeatedly against elite opposition, often in unfamiliar conditions and time zones.

For Indian sprinters and hurdlers, the domestic competition calendar rarely offers the kind of depth required to truly stress-test speed and technique. European indoor circuits, by contrast, place athletes under relentless pressure: quick heats, rapid turnarounds, and multiple rounds against runners who are all capable of world-class times.

Shirse’s presence at Miramas reflects a shift in how India’s top track athletes are approaching their seasons. Instead of peaking only at major championships, they are increasingly embedding themselves into the global competition structure, where marginal gains are earned through repeated exposure to elite racing.

Even when the results are modest on paper, the value lies in sharpening starts, learning how to manage rounds, and understanding how to execute under pressure when every hundredth of a second matters.

Looking ahead to the Asian Indoor Championships

The Miramas outing also serves as a crucial tune-up ahead of Shirse’s next major target: the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships 2026, where he will represent India in the 60m hurdles. At the continental level, the field is narrower than in Europe, but still highly competitive, featuring athletes from powerhouses such as Japan, China, and the Middle East.

Shirse enters that championship as India’s best-ever indoor hurdler. His 7.64 national record has already placed him among Asia’s credible performers, and on a good day, he is capable of reaching finals and challenging for podium positions.

To do that, however, he will need to tighten up the technical aspects that were exposed in Miramas: cleaner hurdle clearance, sharper first three strides out of the blocks, and better control through the final hurdle into the finish line.

At 26, Tejas Shirse is still in the phase of his career where each international outing adds a layer of maturity. Miramas may not have produced a headline time, but it reinforced the reality of the standard required to compete with the world’s best a standard that he is steadily moving towards.

As Indian athletics continues to expand its footprint on the global stage, athletes like Shirse are laying the groundwork through exactly these kinds of meets. The results will be judged not only by seconds on the clock, but by how well he converts these experiences into sharper performances when it truly matters.

With the Asian Indoor Championships now firmly in sight, Miramas has provided both a reality check and a roadmap. For Tejas Shirse, the next race is not just another start it is another step in India’s journey into the elite tier of world hurdling.