Who is Shaili Singh: Long jumper with Olympic dreams
Shaili Singh won a silver medal at the under-20 World Athletics Championships in 2021 and took home another silver at the Asian Athletics Championships in 2023.
Athletics
The long jump has been a difficult code to crack for Indian athletes over the years. Anju Bobby George made her mark at the World Championships in 2003 with a bronze medal and a fifth-place finish at the Athens 2004 Olympics, but no other athlete has carried forward the baton.
While Murali Sreeshankar, silver medallist at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, aims to be the next big name among men, young Shaili Singh has been very impressive among women.
Shaili Singh: A barefoot start
Shaili Singh was born on January 7, 2004, in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh and was raised by her mother Vinita Singh, a single parent to three children – two girls and a boy.
Shaili came from a modest background. Her mother had a small tailoring business to help run the family. But the early days were tough.
“Forget spikes, we could not even afford a pair of normal running shoes,” Shaili told the Indian Express. “I saw the boys in my school competing in races and thought ‘if they can, why can’t I?’
“I started running barefoot and would often return home with blisters on my feet. My mother would weep at the sight,” Shaili recalled.
Nevertheless, her mother encouraged young Shaili to continue pursuing her interest in sports. In fact, Vinita told Shaili to participate in a selection trials in Lucknow, which allowed her to join a sports hostel.
When competing in a junior athletics meet in Mangalagiri, Vijayawada in 2017, Shaili was spotted by Robert Bobby George, a renowned coach and husband of Anju Bobby George. Though Shaili didn’t win the meet or have the best of technique, Bobby and Anju knew the youngster was special.
“Shaili had no technique when we saw her. She was small and physically not impressive,” Anju told Sportstar.
“But when you saw her run you knew she was fast and most importantly she ran in for her last jump with just as much intensity as her first jump. She had that never-say-die attitude.”
Roped in by the Anju Bobby George Sports Foundation, the 14-year-old Shaili Singh moved to the Sports Authority of India campus in Bengaluru, where she was introduced to the finer techniques of the long jump.
Shaili Singh achievements and records
Shaili soon made her mark during the 2018 junior national athletics championships in Ranchi. She broke the national Under-16 long jump record with a leap of 5.94m to win the gold medal.
In 2019, she turned up with an even better performance at the junior nationals in Guntur, jumping 6.15m to create the new Under-18 record, at the age of 15. This also helped her qualify for the World Under-20 Athletics Championships 2021.
Shaili Singh made her senior national debut in June 2021 at the age of 17 and bagged a gold medal, courtesy a leap of 6.48m.
She soon made an impact on the international stage as well. At the World Athletics Under-20 Championships 2021 in August in Nairobi, Shaili Singh won a silver medal with a wind-assisted jump (2.2m/s) of 6.59m in the final. She lost to Sweden’s Maja Askag by the barest of margins, who took the top spot with a 6.60m jump.
Two months later, she bagged the gold at the National Open Athletics Championships 2022 in Bengaluru with a 6.41m leap.
In her next senior outing in April, Shaili Singh recorded a personal best jump of 6.76m to win the gold medal at the Indian Grand Prix 2023 in Bengaluru. The effort was just seven centimetres short of the women’s national long jump record of 6.83m, set by Anju Bobby George at the Athens 2004 Olympics.
The leap also met the qualifying standard for the Asian Games 2023.
India's Shaili Singh won a silver medal in the women's long jump at the Asian Athletics Championships 2023 in Bangkok.
Later in July, Shaili Singh won her first senior international medal when she claimed silver at the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok. The Indian’s best effort was 6.54m, considerably behind Japanese winner Sumire Hata’s jump of 6.97m.
Shaili Singh still has some way to go. Her best jump, albeit just 7cm short of the national record, would have only placed her ninth at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and at the World Athletics Championships 2022. But the ambition burns bright.
“I want to be the first Indian woman to win a medal (in athletics) at the Olympics,” Shaili told Sportstar. “When Anju ma’am broke the national record at the Olympics, she became so famous.
“That is what I want for myself also. Everyone knows who Anju ma’am and Neeraj Chopra are. I want people to also know who Shaili Singh is.”