Murali Sreeshankar marked his return to international competition with a win in the men’s long jump event at the Meeting Maia Cidade do Desporto 2025 in Maia, Portugal, on Saturday.
Competing abroad for the first time since 2023, the 26-year-old Indian athlete registered a best effort of 7.75m on his second attempt to top the field.
The Meeting Maia Cidade do Desporto is a World Athletics Continental Tour bronze level meet (category C) in Portugal.
Poland’s Piotr Tarkowski also logged 7.75m on his fifth attempt but Sreeshankar claimed the top spot thanks to a superior second-best mark – 7.69m from his third jump – compared to Tarkowski’s 7.58m.
As per World Athletics rules, if two or more athletes achieve the same best mark in the long jump competition, the jumper with the better second-best performance is ranked higher.
Australia’s Chris Mitrevski rounded out the top three with a best jump of 7.68m on his last attempt.
The Portugal meet was Sreeshankar’s second competition since returning from a serious knee injury sustained in April 2024, which required surgery and forced him to miss the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Earlier this month, Sreeshankar made a winning comeback on home soil with an 8.05m jump at the Indian Open Athletics Meet 2025 in Pune.
Murali had secured a quota for the Paris Olympics by leaping 8.37m – breaching the Olympic entry standard of 8.27m – to win silver at the Asian Athletics Championships 2023 in Bangkok.
His last major international appearance before injury was a silver-medal finish at the Asian Games 2023 in Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China.