Athletics: Parul Chaudhary, Jeswin Aldrin crash out of Paris Olympics

PARIS: India’s unimpressive show in the Paris Games athletics continued with national record holders Parul Chaudhary and Jeswin Aldrin failing to qualify for the women’s 3000m steeplechase and men’s long jump respectively, in Paris on Sunday.

Parul finished eighth in her heat race and 21st overall to end her campaign in the Paris Olympics.

The 29-year-old, who underwent high-altitude training in the USA for a few months in the lead-up to the Games, ran the distance at 9 minutes 23.39 seconds. It was her season’s best but well below her national mark of 9:15.31 clocked in the 2023 Budapest World Championships.

The top-five each from the three heat races qualify for the final.

Defending Olympic champion Peruth Chemutai of Uganda won the heat number one with 9:10.51 while Faith Cherotich (9:10.57) of Kenya and Gesa Felicitas Krause (9:10.68) from Germany were second and third respectively.

This brought to an end to Parul’s campaign, who had also failed to qualify for the women’s 5000m race along with Ankita Dhyani.

Parul had made direct qualification for the 3000m steeplechase — her pet event — after breaching the entry standard of 9:23.00.

Lalita Babar was the lone Indian woman 3000m steeplechaser to qualify for the final round in the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she ultimately finished 10th.

In the men’s long jump qualification round, Aldrin fouled his first two attempts before coming up with 7.61m in the third. He ended 13th in Group B qualification out of 16 competitors and overall 26th.

All athletes who jumped the automatic qualification mark of 8.15m or at least 12 best performers advance to final round.

The 22-year-old Aldrin has not been able to touch 8m this year and he made it to the Paris Games at the last minute through world rankings. Aldrin has a season best of 7.99m and personal best of 8.42m. IANS

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