3 min readMar 28, 2026 12:35 PM IST
Decathlete Tejaswin Shankar started his outdoor season with a solid outing at the David Noble Relays 2026 in Texas on Friday. Competing for the first time in Decathlon this season, Shankar scored 7947 points falling 53 points short of 8000m mark in a wind-aided competition.
While Tejaswin bettered his previous personal best of 7826 points, this performance won’t be eligible for any records as three events (100m run, 110m hurdles, and Long Jump) were wind aided.
The wind assistance in 100m and Long Jump were on the higher side with +4.7 m/s and +4.5 m/s while the 110m hurdles had +2.5 m/s reading. As per the rule of World Athletics, a combined events score is eligible for record if the average wind assistance for 3 events — 100m, long jump, 110 hurdles is less than 2m/s but in Tejaswin’s case it is 3.9m/s.
Tejaswini registered personal best in 100m (10.59s), 110m hurdles (14.09s) , Long Jump (7.66m), Shot Put (13.98m), and Pole Vault (4.35m) with the later two being without wind assistance.
Despite the wind assistance, Tejaswini had a great outing overall ending his day one on 4454 points.
On the second day, he didn’t lose the momentum and started with wind-assisted personal best in 110m hurdles (14.09s) and then a lifetime best of 4.35m in pole vault. He accumulated 6759 points from the 8 events, and the 8000 was looking inevitable, but then a sudden momentum dip in last two events stopped him from achieving that figure.
“Not quite the 8000+ we were all hoping for as the oxygen ran out towards the end, ” said Tejaswin via a social media post after missing out on 8000 points.
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Last month, Tejaswin won a gold medal in the Heptathlon event at the Asian Indoor Championships making it his first major combined events gold medal. Tejaswin scored a total of 5993 points breaking his own national record of 5650 points from 2021 and the championship record of 5928 points from 2012.
He aims to be the first Indian to break the 8,000-point barrier and has been training with a group of competitive decathletes is an advantage.
“The idea is to be among 8,000-point calibre athletes so I can break that barrier. There are two guys here who are around 7800-7900 points. So it’s a very strong group. Pole vault is one of their stronger events and one of my weaker ones. So I want to be where I’m pushed in training every day. Unlike in Delhi, where I was practising by myself and coaching myself,” he told this paper earlier.
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