India's star Tajinderpal Singh Toor finished 15th in Group A and ranked 29th overall in the men’s shot put qualification round in the ongoing Paris 2024 Olympics. This was his second appearance in Summer Games. Tajinderpal threw 18.05m in his first attempt, his only valid effort, which was well short of the qualification standard for the final and also below his season best of 20.38m. As a result, he failed to make the Olympic final in back-to-back editions.
The Indian athlete had a disastrous performance. His second attempt was significantly worse than the first, and unfortunately, his third attempt was also a failure. He finished in last place and was eliminated from the competition.
Tajinderpal Singh Toor is a highly decorated Indian shot putter. A two-time Asian Games champion, four-time national champion, and Olympian, he previously held the Asian record. In 2021, he secured his spot in the Tokyo Olympics by breaking both the national and Asian records with a throw of 21.49 meters. He subsequently improved his own record to 21.77 meters in 2023. However, the Asian record was surpassed by Saudi Arabia's Mohamed Daouda Tolo in June 2024.
Apart from Tajinderpal Singh, Parul Chaudhary missed her national record time by one-third of a second but that was enough for an overall 24th position as she and Ankita Dhyani failed to qualify for the final round of the women's 5000m race.
Chaudhary, who holds the national record of 15 minutes 10.35 seconds, clocked 15:10.68 to finish 14th in heat number one while Ankita ended at 20th and last position in heat number one and overall 40th.
Reigning Olympic 1500m champion Faith Kipyegon of Kenya topped the qualification round with a time of 14:57.56, followed by Tokyo Games gold medallist Sifan Hassan (14:57.65) of the Netherlands. Current 5000m world record holder Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia was fifth overall with a time of 14:57.84.
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