After missing out on the Paris Olympic Games, the 21-year-old long jumper has regained her form with a big jump of 6.68m in the domestic meet in Kochi
Navneet Singh
Uttar Pradesh’s promising 21-year-old long jumper, Shaili Singh was on cloud nine on Thursday (April 24) as she sailed to a distance of 6.68m, which erased a more than two-decades old meet record at the 28th National Federation Senior Athletics Championship in Kochi, Kerala. On her way to winning gold in Kochi, she also breached the Asian championships qualification mark of 6.41m.
Incidentally, the meet record of 6.59m was set by Shaili’s mentor and former Worlds bronze medallist Anju Bobby George in 2002.
What is more heartening is that Shaili made a big impression at the jumping arena ahead of next month’s Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, South Korea.
The World U20 silver medallist was struggling to regain her foothold at the jumping pit for more than a year. Thursday’s performance will brighten her immediate prospect and also give a big boost to her confidence.
Right from having unsteady rhythm either due to mental barrier or residual fatigue in major events, including Hangzhou Asian Games held in China in 2023, where she missed out on the medal, Shaili was a shadow of her former self.
She competed in as many as eight competitions in India and Europe in an attempt to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. But her best jump between May to June, a qualifying period for the Olympic Games, was 6.59m. She didn’t make the cut through the world rankings. The automatic qualification in women’s long jump for the Olympic Games was 6.86m.
As she missed out on the 2024 Olympic Games, it must have been very taxing at least mentally on her and her coaching team.
After lying low earlier this season, she began her 2025 campaign with a regional event in Chennai. “She did pretty well and recorded a jump of 6.45m,” Shaili’s coach Robert Bobby George added. “She is fit and there is no issue of ankle niggle.”
In fact, George had predicted a good jump in the Kochi competition which was the final selection trial for the May 27 to 31 Asian meet in South Korea.
Shaili got her rhythm perfect in her third jump to sail to a distance of 6.68m to improve the 6.59m meet record set by Anju Bobby George in 2002.
It will be important for Shaili to stay focused as upcoming events on foreign soil will be more competitive and she might not get the kind of support she gets during the domestic competitions.
It will be interesting to see whether Shaili comes close to her personal best and national Junior record of 6.76m set in April 2023.
