Shaili Singh poised to leapfrog Anju Bobby George Premium

The 19-year-old long jumper, spotted and moulded by Anju and Robert Bobby George, looks capable of surpassing her mentor’s sparkling record

Was that seven metres?

That was the big question for many as they watched young long jumper Shaili Singh produce a massive leap at the Indian Grand Prix in Bengaluru last month. Certainly, it did look like the biggest jump the country had ever seen at home.

A couple of seconds later, to everybody’s disappointment, the red flag went up.

“Yes, it was 6.90-plus. It was very close, a foul by a couple of centimetres. Even if she jumps 7m, it will not be a surprise for me or Anju,” said Robert Bobby George, the head coach at the Anju Bobby High Performance Centre in Bengaluru, who has been coaching Shaili for the last five years.

This means the 19-year-old is very close to Anju’s national record (6.83m), set at the 2004 Athens Olympics in a fifth-place finish. A year earlier in Paris, Anju had won a medal (bronze) at the World Championships, the only Indian woman to achieve this feat.

“Shaili can break the record any time, it depends on the day and the mood. This is just the season-opener, she had a good series, everything above 6.50,” said Bobby.

Anju, whom Bobby had coached to the 2003 Worlds bronze and who is now the mentor at the Anju Bobby HPC, is confident about it, too. “Shaili can break my record this year itself,” said Anju.