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Shot putter Inderjeet Singh became the first Indian to qualify for the Rio Olympics next year, after clinching gold on the second day of the Federation Cup athletics meet at Mangaluru on Saturday.
The Haryana athlete put forth an excellent effort of 20.65m, thereby becoming only the second Indian athlete to go past the 20.50m and also came striking distance of breaking Om Prakash Singh’s national record of 20.69m which he scaled in 2012.
Inderjeet went past his own personal record in his last-but-one heave, throwing a distance of 19.99m before he came up with the effort in his sixth and final throw that helped him qualify, not only for the Summer Games next year, but also for the World Athletics meet, to be held in Beijing in August. His previous meet record was 19.89m, which he achieved in Patiala, last year.
Until now, only Khushbir Kaur, Manish Rawat, Sandeep Kumar and OP Jaisha have sealed a spot in the women’s marathon event at the Games next year, after the qualification period for the road races started on the 1st of January.
