New Delhi, March 28 India's Tejaswin Shankar began his decathlon season on a winning note at the David Noble Relays 2026 athletics meet in Texas, USA, emerging victorious with a new wind-assisted personal best of 7947 points.
Competing for the first time in decathlon this season, Shankar scored 7947 points on Friday, falling 53 points short of the 8000m mark in a wind-aided competition.
Shankar's performance in Texas was better than the existing national record of 7826 points, which he himself had set in Poland last year, but it was not ratified as a new record according to World Athletics rules due to excessive tailwinds.
According to World Athletics rules, decathlon records require the average wind assistance across the 100m, long jump, and 110m hurdles to not exceed +2.0 m/s.
In the Texas meet, the 100m (+4.7 m/s) and Long Jump (+4.5 m/s) readings significantly exceeded the legal limits.
In Shankar's case, the tailwind during the 100m event was +4.7m/s, the long jump event was +4.5m/s, and the 110m hurdles event was +2.5m/s, resulting in an average of +3.9m/s, making the performance ineligible to be considered as a record.
Shankar's victory follows a successful indoor season where he recently won gold in the heptathlon at the 2026 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in February.
During the Texas meet, Shankar, who also holds the Indian national high jump record, also achieved personal best marks in the 100m (10.59s), long jump (7.66m), shot put (13.98m), and pole vault (4.35m).
Emil Uhlin came second with 7773 points, and Dorian Charles finished third with 7720 points.
This was Shankar's first decathlon outing of the 2026 athletics season.