World Athletics Championships: Toor, Johnson, fail to make the cut

Tejinder Pal Singh Toor - shot putter, and Jinson Johnson - 1500m runner, crashed out of the World Athletics Championships recently in the qualification round. Toor, the 24-year-old hailing from Punjab put forward his best effort of 20.43m to finish eighth in the qualification round of Group B. He finished 18th overall out of 34 competitors while Jinson ran a below-par 3 minutes 39.86 seconds to end 10th in his first round and 34th overall out of 43 runners. It was a difficult task for Toor who was the first to take the field. Eight shot putters from Group A had already touched the automatic final round qualifying mark of 20.90m. Toor, on the other hand, who had a personal best of 20.75, failed to make the cut. The World Athletics Championships which is organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) is being held in Doha, Qatar, this year.

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Tejinder Pal Singh Toor 

Toor opened with a 20.43m. In the earlier season, he had touched the mark of 20.36m. However, he fouled his next attempt. The pressure grew on him as three competitors from Group B had already touched the automatic qualifying mark. Toor had to touch 20.90, rewriting his own national record, further creating his own personal best. However, he could only come up with a 19.55m, which knocked him out of the championships. Tomas Walsh, reigning world champion and 2016 Rio Olympics bronze medalist from New Zealand led the finalists with a throw of 21.92m.

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Jinson Johnson

India was subjected to further disappointment as the 28-year-old Johnson who broke his own national record just last month with a time of 3:35.24, failed to preserve enough energy. He failed to perform for the home stretch as he was overtaken by one competitor after another to run more than four seconds outside his best timing. He fell behind towards the end even though he was amongst the leading five until the final bell. The 28-year-old hailing from Kerela remained in the top three positions for the most part of the race, however, in the final lap, he dropped behind, eventually dropping to the 10th spot by the finishing line.

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(With PTI inputs)