CHENNAI: Long jumper Shaili Singh has started the new season with a strong 6.45m jump, breaching the Asian Athletics qualification mark at the Indian Athletics Open: Chennai, held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Tuesday.

After narrowly missing out on the Paris Olympics qualification at the Interstate event last year, Shaili was competing in her first competitive event after nine months and had a good start with jumps of 6.03 and 6.17, but the jumps didn't go her way in her third and fourth attempts, where she recorded scores of 5.86 and 5.07. But she made her mark in her last attempt with a score of 6.45, which also helped her bag the gold medal.

The silver was won by Meryl Mathew of Tamil Nadu with a best jump of 5.68, and the bronze was won by Pooja Saini of Rajasthan.

West Bengal's Moumita Mondal, who juggles between two disciplines, recorded her personal best of 6.44m in March, and it would be interesting to see who takes the two Asian Championships slots at the upcoming Federation Cup.