Mumbai: India’s top long jumper Murali Sreeshankar continued his optimistic return from a long injury layoff, finishing on top at the Meeting Maia Cidade do Desporto in Maia, Portugal on Saturday with a best jump of 7.75m.
The event, a World Athletics Continental Tour bronze level meet, was Sreeshankar’s first international competition since his silver medal finish at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games. It also marked his second outing in as many weeks since coming back from a career-threatening knee injury that put him under the knife and a challenging rehab trail. Returning to competition after a lengthy gap, Sreeshankar did well to jump 8.05m at the Indian Open in Pune last Saturday (July 12).
“Long story short… I am back,” Sreeshankar posted on Instagram after the Pune meet. “This comeback journey taught me something beyond sports. Here’s to the next chapter with my new knee.”
That new knee, put under the demand of turning up for two events a week apart across two continents, seems to have held up well. In Portugal, Sreeshankar began with a 7.63m effort, and cranked it up to 7.75m in his second attempt. A 7.69m jump followed, before a quiet back end featuring a foul and jumps of 6.12m and 7.58m. Poland’s Piotr Tarkowski also came up with a jump of 7.75m in his fifth attempt, but the Indian’s better next best attempt (7.69m compared to Tarkowski’s 7.58m) pipped him to the top of the eight-man field.
The 26-year-old delivered much better distances overall in Pune with leaps of 7.84m, 7.99m, 7.84m, 8.05m and 7.84m rounding off a solid comeback. Still, competing just a week later in Portugal, the performance and finish can only add to Sreeshankar’s reassurance that he is on the right path after months on the sidelines.
Comebacks from injury can never be easy, let alone one that almost curtailed a promising career.
The long jumper was riding the high of a brilliant 2023 season – he registered a third-place finish at the Paris Diamond League, his personal best of 8.41m, took the Asian Games silver and qualified for the Paris Olympics – when a knee injury during a routine training session in Kerala struck him down in April 2024.
From being confident of making a mark in his second Olympics, Sreeshankar was compelled to undergo a major surgery after his patellar tendon had ruptured.
The injury was severe, which meant the recovery was even slower. A video posted by Inspire Institute of Sport, where Sreeshankar was based during his rehab, on social media shows glimpses of the pain and patience that went into the entire process. It can test the resilience of any athlete, and Sreeshankar, who looks up to American basketball legend Kobe Bryant, tapped into the Mamba Mentality of focussing on and trusting the process. It helped that Sreeshankar had previously been halted by physical setbacks, and each time returned with greater resolve and bigger strides.
This time, it would be no different. This comeback in July 2025, after having last competed in October 2023, is also showing positive signs so far. The challenge now for India’s top jumper will be to get back to the level he was before the injury and truly believes he should be at.
Sreeshankar was a regular and a rare Indian face in Diamond League meets in 2023, and this bronze level meet is only a small step towards progressing to that stage once again. He also regularly delivered 8m-plus jumps, which is the benchmark he would like to consistently get to.
The qualification mark for this year’s World Championships in Tokyo is set at 8.27m, with the deadline of August 24. While that might be a leap too stiff and too soon in his comeback trail, the last couple of weeks have shown that Sreeshankar indeed is back.