GOLD COAST: National record holder Tejaswin Shankar today advanced to the finals of the Commonwealth Games high jump competition after finishing ninth in the qualifying round here today.
Shankar finished a joint fifth in group A and ninth overall. The Indian cleared 2.21m in final analysis after starting out at 2.10m.
None of the competitors in fray could touch the official mark set at 2.27m with 2.21m being the best effort by the top 12, who made the cut for the finals scheduled on April 14.
The 21-year-old Shankar is a Youth Commonwealth Games gold-medallist. He had qualified for the Games by claiming a national record of 2.28m during the Federation Cup last month.
Among others who advanced were Australian cricketer Mitchell Starc's younger brother Brandon Starc, a crowd favourite at today's event.
The stadium, filled with a decent number of fans despite the bright sun, got behind the former Youth Olympics silver-medallist quite loudly during the event.
In the women's 400m heats, India's Hima Das made the semifinals with a timing of 52.11sec, which left her 8th in the overall standings.
However, P R Machettira failed to move ahead, clocking 53.72sec in her heat to finish 24h overall.