CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu's
Mohammed Salahuddin
won bronze in men's triple-jump event at the
National inter-state athletics
meet currently underway in Lucknow on Wednesday. Despite clocking his personal best of 16.79m, Salahuddin finished third-best behind Punjab's
Arpinder Singh (16.83m) and
U Karthik
(16.80m) of Karnataka.
Despite the event seeing a tough competition, none of the triple jumpers made the cut for the Worlds as the qualifying mark is set at 16.95m. "I am not very pleased with my performance since I missed out on qualifying for the Worlds. My landing could have been better and that's one area where I will want to improve," the 25-year-old from Coimbatore told TOI.
Salahuddin admitted that it took a couple of jumps for him to get going. "In the last one month, I have not done any jumps since experiencing pain in my right heel during the Qosanov Memorial meet in Almaty, Kazakhstan last month. There was no injury but chose not to jump as a precautionary measure. On Wednesday, I didn't feel any pain," he said.
Salahuddin felt the
triple jump
event should have started in the evening in order to beat the heat. "It would have been nice had the event started at around 4.30pm. The weather proved to be a challenge for all athletes since it was quite hot out there," Salahuddin said.
Salahuddin is in the midst of a fruitful season. He started off by clocking 16.36m at the Federation Cup in March this year. From thereon, he has gradually increased his distance and Wednesday's effort was a case in point. "In the last five months, I have raised the distance to over 40 cms," he said.
Salahuddin will get another shot at qualifying for the Worlds at the final Indian Grand Prix meeting scheduled to be held in New Delhi on September 5. "It will be an event where I would want to give it my all and hope to make the cut," he said.
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