Mumbai: JSW Sports on Friday announced their association with high jumper Tejaswin Shankar, Silver Medalist at the South Asian Games, under the company's flagship Sports Excellence Program (SEP). The 17-year-old becomes the SEP's 37th athlete and the seventh track and field athlete to be supported under the program.
Tejaswin, who hails from Delhi, is considered one of India's most talented high-jumpers. A budding fast bowler, he only took to the high jump a couple of years ago to increase his strength. His exploits at the South Asian Games, the 2015 World Youth Championships and the 2015 Asian Youth Championships have led to experts touting him as someone to really watch out for.
At the 2016 South Asian Games, Tejaswin's leap of 2.17 meters was equal to what eventual Gold medallist, Sri Lankan Olympian WP Manjula Kumara logged but a foul that the youngster committed on his first jump saw him miss out on the gold. Shankar has steadily improved his range.
In 2015, his effort of 2.12 meters gave him bronze at the Asian Youth Championships before he logged efforts of 2.14 meters at Apia and Hyderabad. In 2016, he has added three centimetres to his jump and high-jump experts say that the six foot four inch jumper has the potential to further increase his mark in the coming months.
Tejaswin said that he was very happy to have signed up with the JSW-SEP and was looking forward to working with the highly-qualified staff attached to the program. "It is a big step for me to sign up with a program that is so well-rounded. I do not have to take care of peripheral factors and can concentrate on my training, conditioning and on the quest to get better. I am happy to be part of a program which counts so many of India's elite athletes as its part," he said.
Mustafa Ghouse, CEO JSW Sports, said that the Sports Excellence Program would do all it can to ensure that Tejaswin maximises his potential. "Within limited means, Tejaswin has come up with impressive results and has shown immense potential. We at JSW are very happy to work with an athlete like Tejaswin who has the requisite intelligence and also the physical attributes to develop into a world-class high-jumper," he concluded.
