By Our Special Correspondent
Praveen Chitravel qualified for next month’s World championships in Oregon, USA with a distance of 17.18m in the men’s triple jump event of the 61st inter-state National athletics championships at the JN Stadium here on Tuesday evening. The qualification mark set for the Worlds was 17.14m. The 21-year-old’s effort saw him rewrite the meet record of 17.17m set by Punjab’s Arpinder Singh at Lucknow in 2014. Praveen’s effort was the third on the all-time India list.
Abdulla Aboobacker of Kerala, who won the silver on Tuesday with jump of 7.14m, has already qualified for the Worlds. Chitravel's effort was behind the 17.30m national record of Renjith Maheswary (in 2016) and the 17.19m effort of Aboobacker while winning gold in the Indian Grand Prix 3 in Bhubaneswar last month.
Kerala's Eldhouse Paul, who finished third with a time of 16.81 meters, also crossed the 16.56 meter Commonwealth Games qualifying distance set by the Athletics Federation of India. "I was injured in a competition in Italy and recovered two weeks ago. That is why I am participating in this competition directly without any training," Chitravell said.
"I was able to walk two weeks ago. I'm competing here because of my physic. So there are no expectations. I prayed to God and jumped." In the women's long jump, Aishwarya Babu of Karnataka won the second gold in two days with a distance of 6.60 meters.
In the qualifying round on Sunday, she jumped 6.73 meters, the second best by an Indian. Aishwarya broke the national record of triple jump with an effort of 14.14 meters on Monday. NC Sojan (6.49m) and Shruthi lakshmi (6.35m) from Kerala finished second and third respectively.
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