High jumper Shankar to skip Federation Cup athletics

New Delhi, March 13 National high jump record holder Tejaswin Shankar will skip the Senior National Federation Cup athletics meet starting next week in Patiala as it clashes with his National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) indoor season.

Interestingly, the men's high jump has attracted only nine entries in the Federation Cup, starting March 15 at the National Institute of Sports.

Shankar, 22, is studying business administration at Kansas State University. He is on a four-year athletics scholarship, since 2017. He recently won bronze at the Indoor NCAA meet, clearing the bar at 2.24 metres in the Division 1 track and field championship at Fayetteville in Arkansas.

The Delhi-based Shankar recently participated in multiple events, including triple jump and heptathlon, to build up a strong base for upcoming outdoor competition. Last month he cleared 2.25m at the Sports Performance Centre in Lubbock in Texas.

Recently, Shankar had also improved the national record in heptathlon by scoring 5,650 points at the DeLoss Dodds Invitational meet in Manhattan, Kansas. The previous mark of 5,561 points was in the name of PJ Vinod.

Shankar is yet to qualify for this year's Olympic Games. His personal best is 2.29m while the high jump Tokyo Olympic qualification mark is 2.33m. "My goal this year is to surpass the 2.33m," he had said after breaking the national heptathlon record.

( With inputs from IANS )