The wounded sense of what might have been hung over the National Athletic Centre long jump pit here at the 2023 World Championships. From an Indian perspective, we had two world-leading jumpers at the qualifying; a reason to understand and believe that this could be that turning point like what we witnessed with Neeraj Chopra. Jeswin Aldrin and Murali Sreeshankar with season’s bests of 8.42m and 8.41m, gave everyone that confidence and belief. Both making the final would have been a fantastic step ahead.

Need to raise the bar

Yet, at the end of the qualifying, Aldrin scraped into the final in the 12th spot (12 qualify) with a jump of 8.00m, while Sreeshankar, with jumps of 7.74m, 7.66m and 6.70m crashed out. As fate would have it, it’s extremely strange. At the last World Championships in Eugene (2022), Sreeshankar had qualified for the final with a jump of 8.00m, while Aldrin missed the final, jumping 7.79m. In the 2022 final, Sreeshankar finished 7th with a jump of 7.96m.