The sandpit at the Chania international meet in Greece proved to be a difficult one. But long jumper M. Sreeshankar won the gold comfortably with a wind-assisted 7.95m (+2.4) on Sunday.
The 23-year-old also had a legal best of 7.81 in the meet, a World Athletics Continental Tour bronze event, where Frenchman Jules Pommery took the silver with 7.73.
It was Sreeshankar’s second gold in Greece in five days after his victory (with 8.31m) in Kallithea, Athens, last week.
“It was good...didn’t put too much effort into this. Only target was to win. Lot of positives from this meet,” Sreeshankar told Sportstar from Athens on Monday evening.
“But the pit was really bad. They put a lot of sand, felt like jumping onto a hill. Even Emmiyan (long jump great Robert Emmiyan, now a coach in France) made an appeal to the organisers about it. But that didn’t help much.
“Emmiyan said it was impossible to jump far as the pit was like a mountain.”
A day before Chania, Sreeshankar got news that his entry – which was on wait list earlier - for the Ostrava Golden Spike (a World Athletics Continental Tour gold event, May 31) was confirmed. But it was a bit late.
“So we stuck with Chania,” he said.
Sreeshanth and S. Murali, his dad, also his coach, will return to India on Tuesday.
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