Asian Games: Tejaswin Shankar clinches bronze medal in decathlon

Tejaswin Shankar created history with a bronze medal in the decathlon at the 2026 Asian Games. Shankar became the first-ever Indian to win two medals at the Asiad. The Indian athlete had won a silver medal in the 2022 Asian Games. The 27-year-old finished with a score of 7,934. Japan's Yuma Maruyama clinched the gold medal with 8,123 points. China's Chen Xinghua won the silver medal with 8,012 points.

The Indian had a good chance of keeping his position in silver and had remained in with a chance of finishing higher right up to the end of the competition. Prior to the discus throw, Shankar was at the top of the standings with 5,270 points, having obtained 932 points by finishing third in the 110m hurdles heat in 14.33 seconds.

Although his best throw in the discus was 36.77 metres, which was about four metres less than his personal best, he still came third in the competition. His total score then reached 5,869 points, with athletes from China and Japan passing him in the rankings.

In the final part of the decathlon, the events were the pole vault and the javelin throw, neither of which is among Shankar's stronger events, making it even harder to win back the silver medal.

In the other athletics results, Manju Rani came sixth in the women's marathon race walk with a time of 3:40:17, while Priyanka Goswami was disqualified at the 9 km mark.

India had a very good performance in surfing as Sivaraj Babu reached the third round of the men's shortboard competition by beating Iran's Davoud Khadir with a score of 8.96.

Sivaraj registered scores of 4.83 and 4.13 from his two waves to move into the next round, where he will join fellow Indian Kishore Kumar.

Earlier, Sugar Shanti Gayen and Kamali Prakash also advanced to the third round. Gayen defeated Chinese Taipei's Chen Wan-yu 7.33-5.40, while Prakash overcame Singapore's Camille Marie Spaccarotella 7.57-4.50. All four Indian surfers competing in the men's and women's shortboard events have advanced to the third round.

(With IANS inputs)

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