Spotlight on promising long jumper Shaili Singh

Bengaluru, Mar 19 (PTI) The spotlight will be on promising Shaili Singh at the Indian Open Jumps Competition beginning here on Wednesday.

With the Paris Olympics lined up in July-August, the world U-20 silver medallist in women's long jump has specific goals set this year.

"It is too early to expect outstanding performance but we are hoping for a good result, otherwise it will be a challenging task to earn a ticket to Diamond League competitions," Shaili's personal coach, Robert Bobby George, said on the eve of the one-day domestic competition.

According to the national long jump coach, the first domestic competition in Bengaluru will be all about evaluation of performance and how to move forward in the right direction to win a ticket to the Paris Olympics.

"We have set specific goals for each competition for Shaili Singh," the long jump coach said.

Shaili has a personal best of 6.76m recorded last year in April in Bengaluru. She finished fifth at the Hangzhou Asian Games with a jump of 6.48m.

The women's long jump event in Bengaluru has attracted nine competitors including Nayana James of Kerala.

The focus will also be on men's triple jump. Birmingham Commonwealth Games champion Eldhose Paul, Karthik U and Abdulla Aboobacker, all from Kerala, will begin their season with the competition.

Praveen Chithravel, who holds the national record of 17.37m recorded last year, will skip the event. Promising Tamil Nadu triple jumper Selva Prabhu will compete in the U20 age group. His personal best and national record record of 16.78m was recorded last year.

High jumper Jesse Sandesh of Karnataka and long jumper Muhammed Anees will be other prominent athletes in action. PTI AH AH BS BS