Decathlon: Tejaswin Shankar breaches Asian Games qualifying standards at Arizona athletics event

New Delhi, April 8 (IANS) Tejaswin Shankar, who holds India's men's high jump national record, achieved a new personal best of 7,648 points to finish second in the decathlon competition at the Jim Click Shootout and Multis 2023 athletics meet in Arizona, USA, on Saturday.

The Indian athlete was competing in only his second decathlon competition after his debut in the combined-event discipline at the Big 12 Conference held in Texas in May last year. There, Tejaswin Shankar logged an impressive score of 7,592 -- the highest by any Indian decathlon athlete in almost 11 years.

At the Jim Click Shootout, Tejaswin improved his personal best to 7,648 -- just 10 points short of the Indian decathlon national record held by Bharatinder Singh since 2011.

The mark also saw the 24-year-old Shankar breach the Asian Games 2023 qualifying standard for the decathlon, set at 7,500 points by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), an olympics.com report said.

Notably, decathlon is a combined event which includes 10 different sports -- 100m sprint, long jump, high jump, shot put, discus throw, 110m hurdles, javelin throw, pole vault, 400m race and a 1500m race. Athletes earn points for their performance in each category and are ranked according to their total tally at the end of all the events.

Tejaswin, a high jump bronze medallist at the Commonwealth Games 2022, led the field in the high jump and 400m events while finishing second in the long jump, shot put and 110m hurdles. His weakest showing came in the pole vault event, where he finished eighth.

Till Steinforth, representing the University of Nebraska, topped the decathlon leaderboard at the Jim Click Shootout with 7,845 points. Emil Uhlin came in third with 7,440 points.