Kochi: Former Junior National Champion K.J. Klinton’s U-18 meet record of 7.18m in state junior athletics championship had remained intact for 14 years until the moment Sreeshankar M. stood at the far end of the Long Jump pit at the Maharaja’s College Ground here on Saturday.
It took no more than two attempts for the 17-year-old from Palakkad to virtually glide over the existing mark. But from the emotions that spilled over when the pit-side official declared 7.62m, one could sense that Sreeshankar had achieved more than just a meet record, which in his case was set when he was still an infant.
“It was like a spell has been lifted,” said Sreeshankar after securing the record gold. “I have been trying to break the 7.50m barrier for almost a year and I just couldn’t get past it on four occasions prior to this,” said the 12th standard student of Kendriya Vidyalaya in Kanjikode.
Sreeshankar had cleared 7.49m twice this year, in the SAF trials in Patiala and for a gold in the Youth nationals held in Kozhikode. It was 7.41m when he took a silver medal in the Junior Federation Cup in May and 7.48m at the state inter-club meet.
Sreeshankar’s significant feat was the highlight of an eventful second day of the meet that saw a total of nine individual and three medley relay record take a tumble. Another Palakkad lad Nisanth D.K. broke a 2004-mark of 23:55.40 in U-16 boys 5km RW with an improved 23:35.80.
Kozhikode’s Aparna Roy had a brace of record gold medals that she achieved in the U-16 girls’ medley relay and in the 100m hurdles, in which her 14.57 seconds took out T.S. Arya’s 14.67 from 2010. Ernakulam continues to lead the race for the overall title with 303 points while Palakkad and Kottayam are second and third on 263 and 255 points respectively.
