Mayookha Jonny Books London Olympic Berth

Mayookha Jonny

India’s long and triple jumper Mayookha Jonny on Saturday booked her London Olympic berth when she won Bronze on the third and penultimate day of the Asian Athletics Championships in Kobe in Japan.

Following her Gold medal haul in Long Jump on Thursday, the Kerela athlete continued her good show and leapt 14.11m to win bronze. She smash her own national record of 14.02m which she set at the third leg of Asian Grand Prix at Wujiang, China to become the first Indian women triple jumper to cross 14m mark.

With this leapt, Mayookha jump past the London Games ‘B’ qualifying standard of 14.10m thereby booking her place in the triple jump event for the London Olympic Games. She has also qualified for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea in long jump as well triple jump to take place from August 27 to September 4, 2011.

She qualified in long jump as Asian champion while she crossed the ‘B’ standard of 14.10m in triple jump while her compatriot MA Prajusha finished seventh with an effort of 13.63m. China’s Limei Xie won the gold by leaping 14.54m, while Valeriya Kanatova of Uzbekistan bagged the silver with an effort of 14.14m.

Meanwhile shot putter Om Prakash Karhana, defending his gold medal which he won in 2009 had to settle for a bronze by tossing the iron ball to 19.47m. Chinese Taipei’s Ming-Huang Chang won the gold (20.14m) while China’s Jun Zhang was second in with an effort of 19.77.