His personal best would have brought him the silver but javelin thrower Sahil Silwal was two metres behind it and had to be content with the fourth spot at the IAAF World under-20 athletics championships on Saturday.
With India’s Neeraj Chopra being the previous champion and the junior world record holder, there was much interest in the event.
But Haryana’s Sahil — a former discus thrower who is now in his first season with the javelin and who has a personal best of 74.88m — could only manage a best of 72.83m. All the three medallists, Australia’s Nash Lowis took the gold with 75.31 while the silver went to American Tzuriel Pedigo with 73.76m, bettered their personal best. Incidentally, none came close to Neeraj’s world record of 86.48m.
Two legal jumps
Tamil Nadu’s junior Asian champion K. Kamalraj, who is recovering from injury, was also nowhere near his personal best (16.41m), finishing fifth with 15.82m. The injury appeared to be troubling him again as Kamalraj had just two legal jumps. Cuban Jordan Diaz took the gold with 17.15m while the Frenchman Jonathan Seremes grabbed the bronze with 16.18m, something that could rankle Kamalraj for long.
Another Tamil Nadu triple jumper, Priyadharshini Suresh, was below her personal best as she finished 20th overall with 12.50m in the qualification round and failed to make the final. The Chennai girl had won the Asian junior bronze in Japan recently with a personal best of 13.08m.
Meanwhile, the Indian 4x400m women’s relay team, comprising V. Subha, Jisna Mathew, Ritika and Hima Das, broke the junior National record with a time of 3:39.10s (old 3:40.50, 2002, in Bangkok), but the fourth place in the heats did not help it reach the final.
The men’s mile relay team also failed to make the cut, finishing fifth in its heats in 3:14.19s.