(Sports news) Murali Sreeshankar won a historic silver medal in the men's long jump at the ongoing Commonwealth Games 2022 with a jump of 8.08m. He achieved this feat with his fifth jump, having spent most of his time outside the medal spots. Bahamas's Laquan Nairn won the gold medal as he also had a best jump of 8.08m but his second best of 7.98m was better than 7.84m of Sreeshankar. Under rules, if two jumpers are tied on the same distance, the one who has a better second best jump will be ranked ahead. In a dramatic final round it seemed that the Indian did enough to cross the 8m mark, which would have given him the gold but to his disappointment his foot landed 2cm ahead of the line. Sreeshankar had gone into CWG as the gold medal favourite with his season's and personal best of 8.36m, which had put him joint second in the world rankings this season.

Jovan van Vuuren (8.06m) of South Africa took the bronze and the other Indian in the final Muhammed Anees Yahiya ended the competition at fifth with a best jump of 7.97m on his last and final jump. Sreeshankar's silver was the best result among any Indian male long jumpers in the CWG as Suresh Babu had won a bronze in the 1978 edition. Prajusha Maliakkal won a silver in the 2010 edition in Delhi, while the legendary Anju Bobby George bagged a bronze in 2002. This was Sreeshankar's first major medal in an international competition and a multi-sport event. Before this, he had only won a bronze in the 2018 Asian U-20 Championships in Gifu, Japan. The medal will give him some sort of relief after his disappointing outing in the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, USA, where he had finished seventh with a very mediocre jump. Yesterday, Tejaswin Shankar opened India’s medal tally in CWG 2022 where had won a bronze in men's high jump 

One thing that Sreeshankar Murali proved by winning a historic silver at the CWG is that nice guys don’t finish last. The 23-year-old hailing from Pallakad district of Kerala became the only the second male long jumper from the country to win a CWG medal with a magnificent effort of 8.08m in Birmingham on Thursday. The wiry-framed and ever-smiling jumper is one of the most amicable athletes in India. He may not be as flashy as the top stars like Neeraj Chopra but the budding athletes and even former players have become admirers of him due to his warm persona, dedication and focus in life.

He was allowed to join Facebook and use WhatsApp only after he turned 18. Sreeshankar, like every Indian household child, never created a fuss over these restrictions and in fact he believes that it has helped him focus better on sports. “My father knows what is best for me,” he said in one interview. Another thing his father firmly believes is in prioritising studies, despite his busy schedule, has not let his academic side of things go down. He apparently carries his study materials wherever he goes to compete and it paid dividends as Murali stood second in his state  for the NEET exam and cleared engineering on pure merit. His NEET scores would have earned him a medical seat in any premier college in India but he had other plans and chose to take up high jumping as his main profession.

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