Fayetteville [USA], January 31 : India's Pradeep Senthilkumar broke the national men's 800 metre short track indoor record during the Razorback Invitational 2026 held at Fayetteville, Arkansas, on Saturday.
The 22-year-old clocked 1:48.09s to outdo his own previous best of 1:48.60s made during February last year at the same venue. He finished seventh in the competition, but nonetheless, he could take a flight back to India with a fresh national record to his name, as per Olympics.com.
Pradeep achieved a second-place finish in the Heat 3 and had seventh place finish in the field. Jams Harding (1:46.83), Elliott Cook (1:46.94) and Matthew Erickson (1:47.26) took the podium spots in the race.
The Razorback Invitational is a category F event, coming under national permit competitions in the World Athletics Calendar.
This marks the third time Pradeep has broken the 800 m indoor national record. First time, he took the possession of record last year with mark of 1:48.73s in Columbia, Missouri, going past Rajeev Ramesan's record of 1:49.46 made way back in 2008.
This outing in Fayetteville marks Senthilkumar's second competitive outing of the season, after having competed in the Thane Baker Invitational in Manhattan on January 16, where he took part in the 600-yard short track event and the 4x400m relay short track events.
The Chennai-born athlete also holds the men's 600 m indoor national record, having clocked 1:17.71s just last year.
The 800 m outdoor men's record for India is held by Mohammed Afsal, who clocked the speed of 1:44.93s at the Memorial Czeslawa Cybulskiego in Poland last year.
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