Ancy celebrates her birthday in style

Sreeshankar surmounts Anees’ challenge in men’s long jump

Ancy Sojan found joy and a career-best as she celebrated her 21st birthday by nailing the long jump gold in the first-ever Indian Open jumps event at the Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium here on Tuesday.

Though heat and high humidity seemed to worry the jumpers through the initial part of the competition, the Kerala girl found the rhythm to post an impressive effort of 6.51m.

The icing on the cake for Ancy, who had done 6.36m at the 2020 Khelo India in Guwahati, was that she could get past the qualifying norms for the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games.

Ancy, who was in the lead after the second round with a 6.29m, always looked good for the title before coming up with her killer effort in the fifth. Compatriot Nayana James took silver with a final attempt of 6.35m and Pooja Saini (Rajasthan) bagged bronze with a best of 6.32m.

The men’s long jump turned interesting as inter-State champion Muhammed Anees Yahiya came close to upsetting the applecart of favourite M. Sreeshankar with an outstanding effort of 8.15m in his last attempt.

National record-holder Sreeshankar, who had a 8.14m in his opening attempt and then 8.10 in the fifth, held his nerve to take gold with an 8.17m effort. Both he and Anees were well over the qualifying mark of 7.98m for both the CWG and Asian Games.

Eldose Paul (Kerala), winner of the men’s triple jump, and Abhinaya Shetty (Karnataka), the gold medallist in women’s high jump also got past the qualifying norm.