India’s Murali Sreeshankar clinched the men’s long jump title at the 2026 Simbine Classic in Pretoria, South Africa on Tuesday.

Sreeshankar registered a best leap of 8.12m to take the top spot on the podium ahead of South Africa’s Divan Manuel (8.07m) in the World Athletics Continental Tour Silver level meet.

Sreeshankar’s winning jump was recorded against a wind reading of -1.0 m/s. It means that he was jumping into the head wind and had no wind assistance in his best attempt.

It marked Sreeshankar’s second competition of the 2026 season. He had kicked the year with a best effort of 8.15m at the Indian Open Athletics Series 1 at the Sree Kanteerava Outdoor Stadium in Bengaluru earlier this month.

Sreeshankar had suffered a major injury just ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics two years ago, forcing him to miss the global competition.

He recovered in time last year to qualify for the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, but had failed to make it past the qualification round.

With the 2026 Asian Games and 2026 Commonwealth Games slated to be held later this year, Sreeshankar would hope to peak in Aichi-Nagoya and Glasgow respectively.