KUALA LUMPUR – National high jumper Nauraj Singh Randhawa has crashed out of the qualifying round of the 2022 World Athletics Championship in Oregon, the United States.
According to the championship website, the 30-year-old Malaysian, who was making his second appearance at a world meet, failed to clear 2.17m and finished last among 14 participants.
Only 12 participants with the best jumps or exceeding 2.30m qualify for the final round.
Nauraj made his world championship debut at the 2017 meet in London, where he cleared 2.26m but failed to make the final round.
Nauraj, ranked 36th in the world, holds the national record of 2.30m, which he set at the Singapore Open in 2017.
With his failure at the world meet, Nauraj will now switch his focus to the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, which will be held from July 28 to August 8.
Lee Hup Wei was the first Malaysian to qualify for the final round of a world championship, after he cleared 2.29m in the qualifying round of the 2019 World Championship in Doha, Qatar.
In the final, Hup Wei cleared 2.27m to finish in eighth place among 12 jumpers. – Bernama, July 16, 2022