Sarvesh’s silver, injured Tejaswin’s assist: A CWG high jump final we won’t forget
Tejaswin Shankar’s competition lasted one jump. His evening lasted the entire final.
He shouldn’t have taken that leap. The start list listed him as DNS (Did Not Start). Then, to the mild surprise of those watching the competition, he left anyway with the other finalists. CWG Day 5 Highlights
The 2022 Commonwealth Games bronze medalist lifted 2.05m on his opening attempt in Glasgow on Monday night, felt something in his knee give way and collapsed to the mat. He didn’t clear the bar. He wouldn’t get another try. He limped off and later named what the twitch already indicated: patellar tendinitis, a knee ailment that came at the worst possible time to end his night. According to the rules of the competition, it should have been like that.
That wasn’t it.
Three Indians competed in the men’s high jump final that evening: Sarvesh Kushare, Aadarsh Ram Jothi Shankar and Tejaswin. One left early. The other two did not finish alone, because the one who left the competition never left the box.
TEJASWIN: NESTRIKER
Glasgow was cold enough that evening that most retired athletes headed straight for the warmth of the mixed zone and a hot drink. Instead, Tejaswin zipped up his jacket and stood on the edge of the apron where the bar kept rising without him. Between tries, Sarvesh and Aadarsh approached him as the batsmen drifted towards the senior professional at the non-striker’s end.
… – .
Tejaswin Shankar has gone nowhere alongside Sarvesh Kushar as he continues his quest for glory at Glasgow 2026.
Check out the Indian High Jump ace pic.twitter.com/8coCaqKQ3i— Sony Sports Network (@SonySportsNetwk) July 27, 2026
It wasn’t all gentle encouragement.
After Sarvesh missed his first two attempts at 2.25m, Tejaswin performed a piece of high jump artistry: skip the height completely, save the jump and instead go straight to 2.28m. “Why don’t you skip it and try to clear 2.28m in one attempt? You’ll win the gold,” he suggested.
Sarvesh was not interested in the shortcut. “No, no, I’ll release 2.25m,” he said, and did exactly that on his last attempt. Tejaswin, for his part, has since waved his hand at any suggestion that he would do anything heroic. He said he was just a sounding board.
There is a version of this story where none of this matters, where Tejaswin is a name in the results column labeled DNF and nothing more. Instead, he gave two teammates under pressure something more useful than sympathy: someone to test their technique against in real time, the sport’s oldest specialty, self-taught by a man no longer allowed to compete in it. It did not loosen a single bar for Sarvesh. It just meant he was never alone with the pressure.
When the bar reached 2.25m, only Sarvesh and Romaine Beckford of Jamaica were left standing. They both cleaned it up. Both then missed 2.28m, and with nothing left to separate them in the night, the countdown began. Beckford held a better record at lower heights (clearing 2.25m on his first attempt) and won gold.
Sarvesh won the silver and with it the first Commonwealth Games medal ever won by an Indian in high jump beyond bronze. Aadarsh finished fifth with 2.15m. England’s Jack Kimani won bronze at 2.20m.
AN EXTRAORDINARY YEAR FOR THE FRIENDLY
Sarvesh Kushare, 31, became the first Indian to win a silver medal in the high jump at the CWG (Reuters photo)
The year before Glasgow was extraordinary for Sarvesh. Earlier this month, he became the first Indian to clear 2.30m, breaking a national record held by Tejaswin himself for eight years, and arrives in Scotland fresh from finishing third in Monaco, only the fourth Indian to reach the Diamond League podium in any event. None of this came easily. He grew up in Devargaon, a village in Nashik built around onion farming, where his father and childhood coach improvised landing pits out of corn husks, cotton and whatever farm waste was lying around because there was no foam mattress.
He didn’t compete at nationals until he was nearly 20, a late bloomer according to the sport’s usual clocks, and it took him ten years of domestic meet gold to arrive at a night when the only man who could match his boxing pedigree was the one standing next to him in a tracksuit, giving advice instead of competing for the same medal.
TEJASWIN IN TEARS
The man had to mourn his own night. Tejaswin went into the final believing that a medal was within reach.
“I really believed I could win a medal here. But to prevent that, I didn’t even take a stab at the first jump,” he told reporters afterwards, before explaining what happened.
Tejaswin Shankar breaks down while talking to the media
“It’s one of those things that really stings.
Tejaswin Shankar after withdrawing from the men’s high jump final at the 2026 Commonwealth Games.
The Indian high jumper was emotional during the media interview pic.twitter.com/9P7oYhmUcv— nnis Sports (@nnis_sports) July 27, 2026
“It’s just overuse patellar tendinitis. That’s why it’s called jumper’s knee.”
He insisted, not entirely convincingly, that the warm-up went well and that he left as sharp as he had been all year.
“I’m still in the best shape of my life. I’m going to try to come back. I’ve got two more days,” he said, and then the calmness that accompanied him through the interview gave way.
He is now a doubtful starter in the decathlon, an event he switched to in 2022 and has since made a name for himself, winning silver at the Asian Games and turning into the country’s most trusted all-rounder. Two days is not much time for a tendon to forgive an evening like this.
But he made up his mind before the tears, with the competition still two rounds away and his own night already over. He was left out in the cold and Sarvesh still had to clean every inch of the pole himself. What Tejaswin gave him was not a medal, but one less thing to carry himself in the process.
Sarvesh Kushare now has his history, a Commonwealth Games silver, which no Indian man has achieved before him. Somewhere in the fine print of how he got there is a teammate who couldn’t jump and didn’t want to leave.
– The end
Issued by:
Akshay Ramesh
Published on:
Jul 28, 2026 05:24 IST