Sherin Abdul Gafoor keen to become India’s long jump lead after lengthy injury layoff

The 24-year-old, returning from an eight-month injury layoff, broke the meet record with a personal best 6.46m at the Tamil Nadu Championships in Trichy on Sunday.

Sherin Abdul Gafoor breaks India’s long jump national meet record in Tamil Nadu Championship. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Three years ago, Sherin Abdul Gafoor was among the very promising long jumpers in the country. The Chennai girl, 21 then, had won the under-23 National with a personal best 6.45m and had silver medals at the Inter-State Nationals and National Open.

She had offers to join the National camp and JSW’s Inspire Institute of Sports in Ballari and chose the latter. She was thinking big, looking forward to go to the Asian Games and jumping 6.70m and more in a year or two.

But things did not go that way.

There was pressure from her parents to move back to Chennai and, after a year in Karnataka, she returned home. She also had to battle a heel injury in 2022 that spoiled her chances of going to the 2023 Hangzhou Asiad and last year, just before the Bengaluru National Open, she suffered a knee injury during training which forced her out of the sport for eight months.

Sherin has now made a happy return. The 24-year-old broke the meet record with a personal best 6.46m at the Tamil Nadu Championships in Trichy on Sunday which fetched her the best athlete award. It also put her on the third spot in this year’s Indian list, behind former Asian Championship bronze medallist Nayana James (6.67m) and silver medallist Shaili Singh (6.52m).

“I did not expect the 6.46m especially since I was coming after the long break,” said Sherin, in a chat with Sportstar from Chennai, on Tuesday.

“After the injury (tendonitis on her take-off leg), I thought I wouldn’t be able to do continuous sport because they told me it could turn out to be like arthritis. Still, I thought I’d give it a try. Now, my confidence is back.”

Sherin Abdul Gafoor in action. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

The automatic qualification standard for next month’s Paris Olympics is 6.86m, 3cm more than Anju Bobby George’s national record (6.83m, 2004), and having missed a major part of the season, it will be tough for Sherin to make the cut even through the World rankings route. But she is just eager to get back to long jump’s lead group at the Inter-State Nationals in Panchkula later this month.

“The standard will be very high, it will be a close affair. Nayana is in very good form and she is hoping to break the national record, Shaili also has been doing very well. Am not sure what Ancy Sojan’s performance will be but last year she did well, this year she could do better,” said Sherin who trains on her own in Chennai’s Nehru Stadium with friends in the sport occasionally guiding her.

“I expect the National record to fall at Panchkula. And it could be Nayana, Shaili or Ancy taking the gold. It could even be me.”