Elated after his athletes won medals at the CWG in triple jump, coach Hari Krishnan credits long jumper Yahiya for delivering his message

The Indian athletes have been absolutely brilliant especially in athletics at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. India have done a commendable job in athletics despite the absence of their gold boy Neeraj Chopra who is nursing an injury and had to miss out on the big event. But his compatriots have made sure that India gets a decent amount of medals from a sector where they are considered not so strong in comparison to sports like Boxing, Weightlifting or wrestling.

However, Eldhose Paul and Abdullah Aboobacker have changed that narrative as the Indian triple jump duo won gold and silver respectively in the triple jump event at the Commonwealth Games. Elhose who recently qualified for the finals at the World Championships in Oregon finished with a mammoth jump of 17.03m and clinched the gold medal for India which was India’s first in athletics  of this edition and also India’s first in triple jump event specifically.

Aboobacker came agonizingly close as he finished in silver medal position with a best distance of 17.02m . While both these athletes finished on the podium, Praveen Chitravel missed the bronze medal by just 3 centimetres as he finished fourth in the event.

After the historic win in triple jump, Aboobacker’s coach Hari Krishnan feels that his ward could have done much better. Although he failed to be in Birmingham due to visa issues, he kept following the event and gave suggestions to the athletes in a very unique manner. “I had expected this. I am very happy with what they did but, I feel Aboobacker could have done a lot better. He has jumped 17.19m,” the coach said.

Aboobacker has been with Krishnan since 2018 whereas Eldhose joined late and started working with him in 2020. Speaking about the gold medallist, Krishnan shared how Paul is a quick learner and always tries to improve with every jump. “Eldhose is someone we always knew had the talent. He is a small guy – just 1.70m in height, but the way he jumped today was unbelievable,” Hari Krishnan said.

He shared how he was following the event and was also on call with India’s long jumper Muhammed Anees Yahiya. Krishnan would pass on his judgment and areas of improvement to his wards as Yahiya delivered those messages to the athletes as they kept on doing better with every jump. He last had a talk before the warm ups and there he shared how the athletes need to let go of everything and jump with all of their might to achieve big things.

“I spoke to Eldhose and Abdulla before the warm-ups. The only thing I told them then was this is supposed to be your day. Forget about everything and jump like madmen,” Krishnan revealed.

Lastly he opened up on the camaraderie that these athletes have among each other and shared how Muhammed Anees Yahiya did a brilliant job and it directly had an effect on their results.” All these guys are good friends. Eldhose shares a room with Anees and he played his role of messenger to perfection to help them better their jumps,” he concluded.