Avinash Sable finishes fifth in Xiamen, qualifies for Diamond League final

Sable, who accumulated four points from Saturday’s race, has qualified for the Diamond League final to be held in Eugene where he will be joined by compatriots Neeraj Chopra and Sreeshankar Murali. Sable overall has bagged 11 points and finished sixth on the table ahead of the winner-takes-it-all final. This will be the first time that three Indians will compete in the finals of the Diamond League.

Sable, who has rewritten the national record multiple times, was still a good five seconds slower than his personal best set at the Commonwealth Games where he had won a historic silver. At the Asian Games, Sable will be a clear favourite for gold. In all the five races in which Sable has competed this season, he has clocked better timings than the 2018 Asian Games gold place finish. The Eugene finals will be a perfect final race before he heads for Hangzhou.

Triple jumpers Pravin Chitravel and Abdulla Aboobacker were also in action at Xiamen. They finished fifth and sixth respectively and failed to qualify for the finals to be held in Eugene on September 16 and 17. It was a disappointing evening for the Indian jumpers who both have personal bests of over 17 metres. Chitravel, who started with a poor 15.91m, could manage only a best leap of 16.42m in his third attempt. Commonwealth Games silver medallist Aboobacker started in a similar fashion with two jumps below the 16m mark before peaking with a 16.25m jump in his fifth attempt.