Almaty, Almaty: East Asian level champion Abdullah Abubkar won his rivals behind only centimeters and won the men’s triple jump title at the Kosanov Memorial 2025 Athletics Meat held in Kazakhstan on Sunday. Commonwealth Games silver medalist Abubakar won the World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze Medal (Category C) athletics competition with the best effort of 16.08 meters on the Olympic training base.

The 29-year-old Indian athlete was athlete as the Asian Championship bronze medalist South Korea’s U Gumin and Kim Jang-Vu. Both these athletes made the same best jump of 16.07 meters, but according to Olympics.com, U Gumin was ranked second based on countback, as their second best attempt of 15.90 meters was better than 15.87 meters of Kim Jang-Wow. Abubakar, who performed his best of 17.19 meters in Bengaluru this year, remains in the race to qualify for the World Athletics Championship in Tokyo, which will begin on 13 September.

The direct qualification mark is 17.22 meters and based on the world rankings, Indian players are in the race to make it to this big tournament. The qualification window will close on 27 August. Earlier this year, Praveen Chitrawell, who set a national record of 17.37 meters in the men’s triple jump, has qualified for the World Championship. On the other hand, Murali Srishankar continued his victory in the men’s long jump in the same competition on Saturday. 26 -year -old Srishankar, who was returning after being ruled out of Paris Olympics 2024 due to a knee injury, jumped 7.94 meters in his first attempt and registered his third consecutive win of the season. Despite not being in the race to qualify for the championship based on the ranking, he will aim to cross the 8.27 m required standard before the qualification period ends.