World Athletics Championships: India's Eldhose Paul finishes ninth in triple jump

Eldhose Paul, the first Indian triple jumper to compete in a World Athletics Championships final, put on a commendable display to finish ninth at the 2022 meet, on Sunday (IST).

The 25-year-old Paul, who produced a best attempt of 16.68m in the qualifiers to squeeze through into the 12-man final, began with a 16.37m jump in his first attempt. With his second attempt, he improved his mark to 16.79m -- just 0.20m short of his personal best of 16.99m logged at the Federation Cup earlier this year.

However, the Indian jumper posted a disappointing 13.86m with his third jump and narrowly missed out on a top eight placement after the third round, which meant he couldn't get the three additional attempts.

Tokyo 2020 champion Pedro Pichardo won the gold medal with a world-leading mark of 17.95m. Burkina Faso's Hugues Fabrice Zango, the Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist, clinched silver with 17.55m while the bronze went to China's Yaming Zhu, the Tokyo silver medallist.

Meanwhile, India's 4x400m team of Muhammed Anas Yahiya, Muhammed Ajmal Variyathodi, Naganathan Pandi and Rajesh Ramesh failed to qualify for the finals after finishing last in its heats. India finished 12th overall in the final standings.

Running on the outside track in heat 1, the Indian team clocked 3:07.29s (split: 46.15, 46.41, 46.43, 48.30) to finish sixth in a six-team field. South Africa were also drawn in heat 1 but didn't start. The timing was far off India's national record timing of 3:00.25s, which was posted by the team of Muhammed Anas, Noah Nirmal Tom, Arokia Rajiv and Amoj Jacob at Tokyo 2020.

Notably, India's best timing in men's 4x400m this year is 3:04.41s, achieved at the 7th International Sprint and Relay Cup at the Ataturk University Stadium in Erzurum, Turkey in June.

Hosts USA, the reigning Olympic and world champions, topped the heats with a timing of 2:58.96, followed by Japan (3:01.53) and Jamaica (3:01.59).

The top three teams from each heat and the next two fastest teams across the two heats qualified for Sunday's finals. France (3:03.13s) was the last team to make the cut for the medal round.