"It is great to have fellow athletes push each other" - Long jumper Murali Sreeshankar

Murali Sreeshankar and Jeswin Aldrin stole the limelight at the Federation Cup Athletics Meet in Kerala when the long jumpers took the top two positions on Sunday.

Jeswin Aldrin leaped 8.37m in his second attempt to win the gold medal while Murali Sreeshankar touched the 8.36m mark in his third attempt to settle for the silver medal.

Both Aldrin and Sreeshankar bettered the previous national record of 8.26m set last year.

The two long jumpers also qualified for the World Championship to be held in Orgeon, USA later this year, as they recorded jumps over the qualification mark of 8.22m.

Read: "I am happy to qualify for the World Championships" - Long jumper Jeswin Aldrin

Aldrin's second-best jump of 8.26m, which wasn't a wind-aided jump, was counted for his qualification. The two jumps (Sreeshankar - 8.36m and Aldrin - 8.26m) are now the top two marks in the world so far.

Both Murali Sreeshankar and Aldrin have been the athletes to look forward to as they have been regularly breaching the qualification marks for various international tournaments with ease.

Murali Sreeshankar said it was great to have so many good performances at the Federation Cup and said athletes pushing each other is bringing the best out of everyone.

"It was a world-class performance by Jeswin and it's great to have us push each other. (Muhammed) Anees also jumped 8m plus, so this is a great sign for Indian long jump and hopefully, we'll have some good performances in the upcoming major events," he said.

Murali Sreeshankar on the right path to redemption

Sreeshankar set a new national indoor record last month when he recorded a jump of 7.92m at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia.

Sreeshankar was the only athlete in the competition whose all six jumps were legal. He started with a modest jump of 7.58m and then, had a series of 7.90m, 7.92m, 7.21m, 7.83m, and 7.84m.

The new indoor record in March and the Federation Cup silver medal came at the right time for Murali Sreeshankar as he is on the road to redemption. The long jumper received a lot of criticism for his below-par performances at the Tokyo Olympics.

Prior to the Tokyo Games, Sreeshankar improved his national record to 8.26m but failed to breach the 8m mark at the world's biggest stage and crashed out in the first round.

Given the performances from both Sreeshankar and Aldrin, the two long jumpers would be the ones to look out for at the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games.