Paris [France], August 5 : India athlete Avinash Sable stormed into the final of the men's 3000m steeplechase after finishing fifth in the ongoing Paris Olympics at the Stade de France.
Sable was quick off the blocks in Heat 2 and set the tone of the men's 3000m steeplechase Round 2. Kenya's Abraham Kibiwot was the closest to the Indian in the first 1000m of the race.
Sable started to slip up as the race progressed after stumbling in one of the hurdles. After the race started to intensify towards the end, Sable maintained his position to qualify for the final on Thursday.
He finished in the fifth spot by clocking 8:15.43s behind Morocco's Mohamed Tindouft (8:10.62s), Ethiopia's Samuel Firewu (8:11.61s), Kenya's Abraham Kibiwot (8:12.02s) and Japan's Ryuji Miura (8:12.41s).
In Heat 1, Morocco's Soufiyane El Bakkali finished first by clocking 8:17.90s and qualified for the final.
The other four qualifiers included Uganda's Leonard Chemutai (8:18.19s), Ethiopia's Getnet Wale (8:18.25s), Spain's Daniel Arce (8:18.31s) and Tunisia's Ahmed Jaziri (8:18.33).
The winner of the national trials, Kenya's Amos Serem, ended in the sixth spot after he messed up the water jump. He had to go back around and had to try it again. As a result, he failed to make the cut for the final.
Earlier in the day, Indian athlete Kiran Pahal finished seventh in heat 5 in the first round of the women's 400 m event.
Kiran clocked timings of 52.51 seconds at the Stade de France and finished seventh in her heat and at the 39th spot overall. While Kiran failed to make it to the semifinals scheduled for today, she will have a chance at a medal since she will feature in the repechage round.
Notably, Jeswin Aldrin failed to breach the qualification mark in the men's long jump event at the Stade de France on Sunday at the ongoing Paris Olympics.
Aldrin's best attempt and his single successful jump out of three, of 7.61m in the Group B men's long jump qualification, weren't enough to allow him to take centre stage in the final of the event.
Aldrin's best attempt secured a lowly 13th spot out of 16 in Group B. He failed to breach the qualification standard of 8.15 m. His attempt wasn't enough to help him bag the rank among the top 12 best performers from both groups.
Overall, he ended in the 26th spot, bringing an end to the 22-year-old long jumper's campaign in the qualification round.
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