Xiamen [China], April 20 : Indian athlete Abdulla Aboobacker secured an eighth place finish in the men's triple jump event during the Xiamen Diamond League held in China on Saturday.
Abdulla, who secured a gold medal last year in the Asian Athletics Championships held in Bangkok and a silver during the Birmingham Commonwealth Games back in 2022, logged the best leap of 16.33 m in China.
This was his second competition of the year after securing a first place finish in the Indian Open Jumps Competition in Bengaluru back in March with a 16.76 m mark. Abdulla's personal best jump was logged back in 2022, 17.19m, as per Olympics.com.
The 28-year-old started his campaign with a 15.79 effort and managed to improve it to 16.30 m in his second leap. His best jump of 16.33 came on his fourth attempt after two fouls.
Portugal's Pedro Pichardo, the current Olympic champion and two-time Diamond League trophy winner, bagged the top spot with a meet record jump of 17.51m, beating Andy Diaz's 17.43m from last year.
The second spot was won by Burkina Faso's Hugues Fabrice Zango, the Tokyo 2020 bronze medal winner, with a leap of 17.12 m leap. Local favourite Su Wen was third with a season's best 16.82 jump.
This meet in China was the inaugural meet of the 2024 Diamond League series, which will have 15 events concluding with a Grand Finale scheduled for Brussels in September.