Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
We spend so many of our years watching or trying to walk straight in life that it is a complete paradox that an athlete running in a curve could be so fascinating, a sheer delight to watch. When Sarvesh Anil Kushare cleared the 2.31m bar at The Kalinga in Bhubaneswar, at the Inter-State Championships, he brought this physical and philosophical paradox to life. But what is truly exciting is not just the historic number on the scoreboard; it is the question of how high this understated athlete can soar. At 31, he has arrived at an age where coaches endlessly debate the trade-offs between biological “ability” and “agility”. Kushare, like a select few before him, may have matured late, but in an event like the high jump where raw strength and velocity do not dictate success in the way they do in sprints, middle-distance runs, or throws, this late maturity may be exactly what carries him to the cusp of big-time global podium finishes.
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Yet, Sarvesh has always been profoundly understated. If you did not know him, you simply would not know him; he makes absolutely no effort to be known. Bereft of the theatrical clownery and performative showmanship that defines many of his peers, he acts as a jumper in a hurry as if he needs nothing more than to escape the landing pit. Watch him closely enough on the track near the landing foam, and he seems lonely, alone, almost homeless. At times, it is as though they had to drag him from his home just to place him in the pit. Yet, this quiet, detached focus is precisely what fuels his rise. We humans may strive for straight lines, need a ruler to draw one, and get berated by teachers in school for failing to keep a steady hand. But it is in the mastery of the curve, and the isolation on the top of the bar or the landing mat, that Kushare is redefining the limits of athletic longevity.
In the high jump, there is only so much that one can control. Life is probably the same. We believe we have the control. After starting at a height of 2.12m, bypassing 2.16m, he cleared 2.19m on his second attempt. Then, 2.22m, 2.25m, and 2.27m were effortlessly dismissed on his first attempts. Then straight to 2.31m. Jithin Thomas deployed the coach’s ultimate gamble, a psychological gambit designed to bypass the mental block entirely by targeting 2.31m, completely ignoring the then-National Record of 2.29m or even the incremental comfort of 2.30m. Two attempts went by in a flash as gravity triumphed. Had Jithin overreached? Then, like most things that fall into place at the exact time and place where fate decrees, Kushare’s 14-step curved run on the third and final attempt yielded 2.31m. The National Record was gone. The crown was Kushare’s. He took two exploratory attempts at 2.35m, hoping the moment might expand itself to embrace him further. It didn’t. Ever the pragmatist, Kushare didn’t attempt the third. A height of 2.31m was good enough to savour for the moment. The bar could be raised some other day, someplace else.
To understand the quiet, almost melancholic solitude that Kushare projects at the pit, one must travel back to the 2025 Tokyo World Championships. It was there, on the grandest, also unsettling stage in sports, that Kushare found himself utterly alone. Due to constraints and administrative oversight, his coach and guiding light, Jithin Thomas, was left behind in India.
For an elite high jumper, for most events, a coach is not merely sitting in the stands; they are a human mirror who catch the flaws in a 14-step approach or the subtle slackening in the final three strides. In Tokyo, the stadium stared back at Kushare, the athlete forced to rely entirely on his own instincts. Instead of breaking down, he soared to a stunning, historic sixth-place finish, the best ever by an Indian male high jumper at the World Championships, clearing a then-personal best of 2.28m. Inside the sweltering cauldron of Tokyo’s National Stadium, Kushare learnt to survive and conquer. While his competitors huddled with world-class technical support between jumps, Kushare sat on the bench, the experience though daunting, enriching him.
In an era where teenage prodigies are rewriting the rules of track and field, USA’s high school phenom Tate Taylor breaking the 20-second barrier in the 200m; Australia’s Gout Gout clocking a staggering 19.67s; or Quincy Wilson running an astonishing 44.20s in the 400m at just 16, comprehending Kushare’s longevity becomes an essential study. Even within Indian borders, youth is surging, exemplified by Pooja Singh clearing a phenomenal 1.93m at the Asian U20 Championships.
Yet, India’s premier jumper is not about exploding onto or over the bar. It is a genteel, almost whispered turn of the torso as Kushare’s body barely disturbs the ozone around it. Traditional high-performance models stubbornly argue that ageing degrades the explosive, fast-twitch power necessary to clear elite heights. However, sports science and biomechanics reveal that high jumping is a cerebral, highly technical discipline that prioritises coordination and structural leverage over raw physical power.
Where a younger athlete relies on superior, brute muscular force, they simultaneously struggle with the precise, microscopic timing of the jump. Over decades of relentless training, mature athletes develop highly refined senses that optimise the take-off angle, typically around 45 degrees, while maximising a take-off velocity that ranges between 4.5 and 5.4 meters per second. Consequently, an older jumper can achieve an equal if not superior, vertical displacement compared to a younger competitor, substituting wisdom for youthful force.
THE THREE-DECADE THRESHOLD
Mature jumpers have learnt the art of bar clearance. By executing an elastic back arch, the classic Dick Fosbury arch, and strategically lowering their limbs during the flight phase, they achieve clean clearances. This is the fine wine of athletic maturity; it is a skill that ages beautifully.
Kushare’s achievement at age 31 is validated by a rich global history of high jumpers who found their ultimate sweet spot well after crossing the three-decade threshold.
Take the mercurial Italian, Gianmarco Tamberi. At 31, he won his first outdoor World Athletics Championship gold medal in Budapest (2023) by clearing 2.36m. A year later, at 32, he conquered the European Championships in Rome with a stunning 2.37m clearance. Tamberi is a testament to the fact that technical refinement can beat back the biological clock.
Then there is the master himself, Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim. At 31, Barshim secured his third consecutive outdoor World Championship gold in Eugene (2022) at 2.37m. At 32, he claimed bronze in Budapest and captured gold at the Hangzhou Asian Games (2.35m). At 33, he defied gravity once more at the Paris 2024 Olympics to take bronze, clearing 2.34m and becoming the first high jumper in history to win four Olympic medals.
The trend spans across genders and borders. Ukraine’s Andriy Protsenko secured a World Championship bronze in Eugene at the age of 34. On the women’s side, Spain’s Ruth Beitia remains the ultimate icon of mature longevity; having briefly walked away from the sport, she returned to win Olympic Gold at the Rio Games at the grand age of 37, clearing 1.97m.
Even Stefan Holm, one of Jithin Thomas’s favourite high jump deities and the 2004 Olympic Champion, defied physical limitations through age. Standing at just 5’11”, Holm relied entirely on precision. Kushare, standing at 5’10”, shares this exact physical defiance. Because Holm could not rely on natural height, his approach had to be flawless. In the twilight of his career, Holm’s run-up was rhythmic, quiet, and his clearance was so clinical it achieved a rare, enduring beauty.
“There is still room for improvement,” insists Jithin Thomas. “More agility, more gruelling weight training sessions. You have to come out of your comfort zone. Kushare needs to be adventurous.”
Thomas smiles grimly when recalling the preparation. “Zabardasti nikala hai (I forced him out of his comfort zone). I had to tell him army ke tarike se (in a stern army man’s language).”
For years, Kushare’s progress was slow. “He used to lose control of his run-up whenever he went for the national record,” Thomas explains. In elite high jumping, the 2.00m or 2.30m marks are not just measurements; they are psychological hurdles. The 2.30m mark is the boundary that separates continental-class competitors from those who belong to the global elite.
After achieving a personal best of 2.27m in 2022, Kushare spent nearly four years knocking heavily on the door of the 2.30m sanctuary. The bar became the threat. Thomas noted that whenever the bar rose to that fateful number, Kushare would overthink, disrupting his run-up tempo and losing acceleration in his final three steps, the exact zone where lift is critical.
By strategically bypassing 2.30m and jumping straight to 2.31m in Bhubaneswar, Thomas reframed the challenge. The mental release was instantaneous. Former national record holder Tejaswin Shankar validated this psychological breakthrough, noting that once the 2.30m barrier falls, targets like 2.34m or 2.35m suddenly shift from impossible dreams to tangible targets.
INTERNATIONAL THREAT?
With his 2.31m breakthrough, Kushare is no longer just an Indian champion; he is an international threat. The packed 2026 season offers three distinct arenas to test his mature craft against the world.
On Friday, July 10, 2026, Kushare will make his highly anticipated Diamond League debut at the Meeting Herculis EBS at the Stade Louis II in Monaco. The warm, humid Mediterranean climate and the historically fast Monaco track where Tamberi set his Italian record of 2.39m offer pristine conditions. He will share the field with a rebuilding Mutaz Barshim and Italy’s rising star Matteo Sioli. If Kushare can control the initial rush of Diamond League adrenaline and replicate his J-curve, a clean clearance between 2.26m and 2.29m will comfortably put him in the top five standings.
Quickly following Monaco are the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, running from July 23 to August 2, 2026. While New Zealand’s reigning World and Olympic Champion Hamish Kerr remains the heavy favourite, the battle for the remaining medals is wide open. Facing Australia’s Brandon Starc and Joel Baden, alongside compatriot Adarsh Ram, Kushare’s proven ability to clear 2.31m under intense pressure makes him a legitimate silver or bronze medal prospect.
The ultimate test, however, awaits at the Nagoya/Aichi Asian Games. Having agonisingly missed the podium with a fourth-place finish (2.26m) in Hangzhou while Barshim took gold at 2.35m, Kushare enters Nagoya with a bit of a swagger. Armed with his 2.31m clearance, he now possesses the mental ammunition to look South Korea’s Woo Sang-hyeok and Barshim dead in the eye.
“Age 31 is just a number,” Thomas reiterates. “Discipline and determination work at the highest level. Ab jab haath milaliya hai to sunna padega (Now that we have shaken hands on this journey, he has to listen to me).”
To normalize these heights, Thomas is already forcing Kushare to attempt 2.33m and 2.35m in routine training sessions, stripping the elite heights of their mystique.
From training on makeshift corn husk pits in Deogaon, a quiet village in Maharashtra’s Nashik district, Sarvesh Kushare is Indian high jump’s ‘Last Man Standing’. If he can keep his rhythm quiet, his torso turning gently over the bar, and his J-curve true, he will continue to prove that an athlete’s peak is never dictated by the calendar but by the timeless, understated search of understanding space
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
