K-State high jumper Tejaswin Shankar wins second national championship for Wildcats
It may be a while before track-and-field aficionados stop referring to Kansas State as “High Jump U.”
Tejaswin Shankar, a fifth-year senior at K-State, won a national championship in the high jump Friday at the NCAA outdoor meet at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.
It was his second trophy in the event. He also claimed a national title for himself in 2018.
This title came down to the wire in a jump off between Shankar and Georgia’s Darius Carbin. Shankar was able to clear the bar at 2.27 meters (or 7 1/4 feet) on his first try, while Carbin missed.
Shankar, a native of New Delhi, ended his college track career in style.
“It feels great to be a national champion,” Shankar said in a statement. “I wanted to give my best and go out with a title. For that to happen is just a blessing. This one I will cherish the most. This meet was my last meet and I wanted to go out there and make it memorable for myself, make it memorable for the university. In the last five years, the university has done so much for me. I would like to dedicate this to the athletics department and the Little Apple. K-State is High Jump U.”
The Wildcats have always seemed to have an excellent high jumper on campus under coach Cliff Rovelto, going back to the days of Erik Kynard, who was retroactively awarded a gold medal at the 2012 Olympic games in London.
“He did a good job today,” Rovelto said. “I thought he did great during warm up and I thought he was a little nervous on the first jump. This is technically his fourth meet of the outdoor season, which isn’t a lot. I really felt like he was ready to compete to win. He just competes well. We’ve had a couple guys be eight time All-Americans, but he has scored at all the seven national meets in which he has competed.”
Though this was only Shankar’s second outdoor national title during his K-State career, he came close to winning a few more over the years. He finished national runner-up in 2019 and 2021.
But he is back on top after another strong showing over the weekend.
This story was originally published June 12, 2022 at 6:03 PM with the headline "K-State high jumper Tejaswin Shankar wins second national championship for Wildcats."