The last two years have seen a sharp spike in India's long jump performance. Consider this: in 1974, T.C. Yohannan set the Indian long jump record with a 8.07m jump. It was 30 years of wilderness before someone could touch that mark again. The late Amrit Pal Singh, who died tragically in a road accident in 2021, bettered that mark to 8.08m in 2004. It took another nine years before Kumaravel Premkumar hit 8.09m. Till 2018, there were only four Indian men who had breached the 8m mark in the history of long jump.
Then came Murali Sreeshankar. In 2018, the Kerala man set the national record at 8.20m, and then he broke it again and again. Since 2022, three Indian male jumpers—Sreeshankar, Muhammad Anees and Jeswin Aldrin—have made it a habit to breach the 8m mark. In 2022, Sreeshankar became India’s first male long jumper to qualify for the finals of the world championships and the first to win a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games. The national record, naturally, has fallen repeatedly in this period.
That record is now held by Jeswin Aldrin, who, in March, made a spectacular 8.42m leap. At the same national meet in Bellary, Karnataka, Sreeshankar jumped 8.41m. These are distances that can get them Olympic medals—the Olympic gold in Tokyo in 2021 was achieved with a 8.41m jump by Greece’s Miltiadis Tentoglu.
In August, Aldrin became the second Indian male after Sreeshankar to qualify for the finals at the athletics world championships. At that competition in Hungary, Aldrin scuffed his chances in the final, finishing with one legal jump that put him 11th out of 12 finalists.
No matter, Aldrin said in an interview as he prepares for his first major multisport event, the Asian Games, “what is important is to keep learning from these experiences.”
What does the 21-year-old jumper from Tamil Nadu hope to achieve at the Asian Games? Nothing less than the Asian record (8.48m), and a historic gold and silver with both him and Sreeshankar on the podium. Edited excerpts from the interview:
It has been a great year for you. First you set the national mark, then you made the World Championship final, and now you are headed to the Asian Games.
This was my best season performance-wise. I am very happy with it. To get 8.42m was such a great experience.
Did it feel different to you when you made the 8.42m jump?
I think it felt more light. I’ve never felt that way before in terms of the speed either. On my approach, I felt that I was at a better speed than before and I also felt like I could control the speed and take off. The moment I took off, I knew it was going to be a big jump. When I landed, I thought I hit around 8.35m. I did not expect 8.42m.
We are seeing such a great culture of jumps being established in India right now with you and Sreeshankar and Shaili Singh. And you’ll all be at the Asian Games together.That makes a big difference. It’s so good to have competition at the national level. Sree jumps 8.30, I jump 8.30. If he does 8.35, I do 8.35. We push each other a lot and to have that at home all the time means we are constantly improving.
At the Asian Games, my dream is to stand on the podium with Sree. I feel like we will create history and I feel like I will do better than my national record and set the Asian record as well.
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It must have been a bittersweet feeling for you at the world championship though.
Yes, it was a great feeling to know that I was part of the best jumpers in the world. But then I could not do well. I don’t want to give excuses but I felt like I was in really good shape and that I would do better than 8.42m in the finals. I had a feeling that the gold medal jump will be around 8.50, and I did my first attempt with that in mind, I went all out. But I slipped on the board and of course that was a big foul. After that I lost the confidence of going at 100 percent. I did not have the experience of putting that first jump behind me and going all out in the other attempts.
How do you use that experience and bring it into training?
That’s exactly what I’m doing right now in training. If I make a mistake or make a bad jump, I am learning how to immediately focus and go all out in the next jump, again and again. Not to get scared or hold myself back, and little by little it’s getting there, it’s going pretty good. I am also doing a lot of drills for the approach – to get to that board at full speed without having to look at it. I am learning to be more consistent with all aspects of the jump while protecting myself from getting injured.
What does a training day look like for you right now?
I am up at 7, breakfast, and then training starts around 8:20. It goes on till 12:30 or 1. This session starts on the track, lots of running work, jumps, plyometrics, skills. Then we move to the gym for weight training. After lunch, there is an evening session which is basically all rehab and recovery work. Then I have free time to watch movies or be with friends.
You grew up in a small coastal village in Tamil Nadu called Mudalur. It is also a historic village because it is one of the first Christian settlements in the state and also it has a lot of beautiful churches. What was your childhood like and how did you get into sports?
Growing up, I knew nothing about the outside world. My house had no TV. I did not have a mobile phone. I spent time with my family. I went to school, went to church, and that’s it. My father owns a famous halwa shop in the village, and my mother helps him and is also a homemaker. I have two younger brothers.
I started sports in school. I loved to be on the field, jumping, running. I used to win all the time and that felt good. I remember I was in sixth grade and my PT (physical education) sir asked me to do a long jump. He thought I was pretty good and he wanted me to compete more seriously.
My family did not like that. We had no sportspersons in our family and they did not know that sports could be a career. They did not have the exposure so they were afraid. Slowly they realized that sports can be a good thing so they started supporting me.
And you got deeper and deeper into sports.
Yes. I started watching international competitions—Olympics, world championship—and I would think to myself, “I have it in me to go there, compete against those guys.” Before Neeraj (Chopra) won the Olympic gold, I believed that I would be the first from India to win an Olympic medal in Athletics.
Did you also try out your new jumping skills outside the track for fun? With your friends perhaps?
I used to do crazy things with my brother. My grandma’s home was across from our home and my brother challenged me once to jump from our home to hers. From the terrace of our two-storey house to the terrace of her single-storey house. Four-metre gap in between. We both made the jump. And then we used to do it all the time. It was scary but also it was a lot of fun.
Your first breakthrough came in 2019.
Yes, I came second in the junior nationals, and a French coach called Antony Yaich saw me jump and he told me that I have a lot of potential and that I should come and train with him at IIS (Inspire Institute of Sports in Bellary, Karnataka). He also convinced my parents to allow me to move. Bellary was the first time I started living away from my family, to see the world, get my first phone. I set the U-20 national record next year under him. I have been in IIS ever since, and now I am working with the Cuban coach Yoandri Betanzos.
You’ve travelled a lot in the last two years, competing in many countries. Do you have a favourite place?
I loved being in Switzerland. The first place I did an 8m jump abroad. It’s very beautiful. I want to go again and again.
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