Tajinderpal Singh Toor won the men's shot put gold at the 61st National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships with a throw of 20.34m on Sunday, but fell short of Athletics Federation of India's qualifying standard for Commonwealth Games in Birmingham by 16cm.
As far as the upcoming World Championships in Oregon are concerned, Tajinder has not reached the entry standard of 21.10m. His throw of 21.49m, a national record, had come at Indian Grand Prix 4 in Patiala last year, six days before the qualification period started for Worlds. Tajinder is likely to make it to the showpiece event in US through his world ranking. World's top 32 male shotputters are set to qualify and as of June 7, 2022, Tajinder is ranked 29th.
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However, he has not been in good form since Tokyo Olympics. A surgery on the left wrist and rehab has only made things more difficult. Tajinder’s throws this year have mostly been in the 19’s.
His coach, Mohinder Singh Dhillon said, “He’s been very weak this year and was not even lifting that much.” He mentioned that his ward had not practised a day after getting married and had come here on the back of very less training.
“The lifts have got better now, I hope the federation will send him, I will personally tell them that he’s lifting better than before. “
According to Dhillon, Tajinder's international exposure since last year has also been curtailed to a camp at Turkey where his only training was with an athlete from Asia.
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