India's unimpressive show in the Paris Games athletics continued with national record holders Parul Chaudhary and Jeswin Aldrin failing to qualify for the women's 3000m steeplechase and men's long jump respectively, in Paris on Sunday.
Chaudhary failed to qualify for the final round after finishing eighth in the heat race to end her campaign in the Paris Olympics on Sunday.
The 29-year-old Parul, who underwent high-altitude training in the USA for a few months in the lead-up to the Games, ran the distance at 9 minutes 23.39 seconds, which was her season's best but well below her national mark of 9:15.31, clocked in the 2023 Budapest World Championships.
The top five each from the three heat races qualify for the final.
The defending Olympic champion Peruth Chemutai of Uganda won heat number one with 9:10.51 while Faith Cherotich (9:10.57) of Kenya and Gesa Felicitas Krause (9:10.68) from Germany were second and third respectively.
This ended Parul's campaign, which had also failed to qualify for the women's 5000m race along with Ankita Dhyani.
Parul had made direct qualification for the 3000m steeplechase — her pet event — after breaching the entry standard of 9:23.00.
Lalita Babar was the lone Indian woman 3000m steeplechaser to qualify for the final round in the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she ultimately finished 10th.
In the men's long jump qualification round, Aldrin fouled his first two attempts before coming up with 7.61m in the third. He ended 13th in Group B qualification out of 16 competitors and overall 26th.
All athletes who jumped the automatic qualification mark of 8.15m or at least 12 best performers advance to the final round.
The 22-year-old Aldrin has not been able to touch 8m this year and he made it to the Paris Games at the last minute through world rankings.
Aldrin has a season best of 7.99m and a personal best of 8.42m.
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