
Kerala’s Nayana James, winner of the Ladies’s Lengthy Leap, in the course of the third Indian Open Jumps Competitors 2024, on the Anju Bobby Excessive Efficiency Centre, in Bengaluru on March 20, 2024.
| Photograph Credit score: Okay. MURALI KUMAR
Kerala’s Nayana James recorded a private finest mark, leaping 6.67m to safe the ladies’s lengthy leap gold on the third Indian Open Jumps Competitors held on the Anju Bobby George Basis right here on Wednesday.
On a day when no athlete threatened the 2024 Paris Olympics qualification mark, the 28-year-old’s effort stood out, coming practically seven years after her earlier better of 6.55m.
Nayana’s finest leap got here off her second try, leaving the fancied Shaili Singh with a mountain to climb. The 20-year-old struggled together with her rhythm and may solely handle 6.40m.
Nayana’s distance was 16cms off Anju Bobby George’s Nationwide file and 19cms behind the Paris mark. However Nationwide jumps coach Denis Kapustin, who had a trackside view to the proceedings, termed it the “finest jumps end result” in latest occasions.
One other athlete to achieve a private excessive was Tamil Nadu’s 22-year-old Pavithra Venkatesh in girls’s pole vault as she scaled 4.15m. It was a candy end result for the 2023 Asian indoor silver medallist, who couldn’t journey to Tehran final month for the 2024 version as she couldn’t carry her poles through cargo.

Pole vaulter Pavithra Venkatesh of Tamil Nadu after her successful leap in the course of the third Indian Open Jumps Competitors 2024, the at Anju Bobby Excessive Efficiency Centre, in Bengaluru on March 20, 2024.
| Photograph Credit score:
Okay. MURALI KUMAR
“I used to be comfortable to get my PB,” Pavithra stated. “I went for the Nationwide file (4.21m) however couldn’t attain it. However general I’m comfortable, particularly after what occurred not too long ago [Tehran fiasco].”
Statemate M. Gowtham scaled 5.10m within the males’s competitors — 30cm higher than his hitherto finest — to emerge first.
In males’s triple leap, Commonwealth Video games silver medallist Abdulla Aboobacker took gold (16.76m) forward of CWG gold medallist Eldhose Paul (16.45) and Tamil Nadu’s Selva Prabhu (16.32).

Kerala’s Abdulla Aboobacker winner of the boys’s Triple Leap, in the course of the third Indian Open Jumps Competitors 2024, on the Anju Bobby Excessive Efficiency Centre, in Bengaluru on March 20, 2024.
| Photograph Credit score:
Okay. MURALI KUMAR
The outcomes: Males: Excessive leap: 1. Jesse Sandesh (Kar) 2.20m, 2. Aadarsh Ram (TN) 2.10, 3. Swadhin Kumar Majhi (Odi) 2.10; Lengthy leap: 1. Muhammed Anees Yahiya (Ker) 7.94m, 2. Aditya Kumar Singh (MP) 7.78, 3. Vishnu Siva Sankar (Del) 7.50; Triple leap: 1. Abdulla Aboobacker (Ker) 16.76m, 2. Eldhose Paul (Ker) 16.45, 3. Selva Prabhu (TN) 16.32; Pole vault: 1. M. Gowtham (TN), 5.10m, 2. G. Reegan (TN) 5.00, 3. Shekhar Kumar Pandey (UP) 4.90.
Ladies: Excessive leap: 1. Athira Somaraj (Ker) 1.76m, 2. Kevinaa Ashwine Annavi (TN) 1.74, 3. Khushi (Har) 1.68; Lengthy leap: 1. Nayana James (Ker) 6.67m, 2. Shaili Singh (UP) 6.40, 3. Susmita (Raj) 6.28; Triple leap: 1. Poorva Hitesh Sawant (Mah) 13.31m, 2. Sharvari Avinash Parule (Mah) 13.31, 3. N.V. Sheena (Ker) 13.18; Pole vault: 1. Pavithra Venkatesh (TN) 4.15m, 2. Mariya Jaison (Ker) 3.80, 3. G. Sindhushree (Kar) 3.80.