U20 Asian Athletics Championships 2026 | Hong Kong, China

Days ago, she was sent back from an airport.

Today, she soared higher than any Indian woman in history.

In one of the most extraordinary and emotionally charged performances Indian athletics has ever produced, Pooja has shattered the Senior Women’s High Jump National Record at the U20 Asian Athletics Championships 2026 — clearing 1.93m to etch her name permanently into the history of Indian sport.

Let that sink in. A junior athlete, at a junior championship, has just set the all-time Indian women’s high jump record.

Two Records. Two Attempts. One Evening.

The sequence of what unfolded in Hong Kong is almost too dramatic to believe.

First, Pooja cleared 1.91m — improving her own U20 National Record and moving to India’s all-time No. 2 in the event. It was already a landmark performance, the kind that would have been the headline of any other athlete’s career.

Then she stepped back onto the runway and went again.

1.93m. Clean. Cleared. The bar stayed on its pegs. India had a new Senior Women’s High Jump National Record — one that had stood since Sahana Kumari’s 1.92m in 2012, a mark that endured for over a decade. Pooja didn’t just reach it. She went beyond it.

In the space of two consecutive attempts, she broke the U20 national record, claimed the all-time No. 2 position, then immediately rendered that ranking obsolete by breaking the senior national record.

The Record in Context

Sahana Kumari’s 1.92m had stood for more than thirteen years. National records in field events, especially those set at elite international meets, have a way of lasting. They demand not just talent but the perfect convergence of form, conditions, competition, and courage.

Pooja produced all four in Hong Kong. At a junior championships. As a U20 athlete. The youngest holder of India’s all-time women’s high jump record.

Her 1.93m also cleared the Commonwealth Games 2026 qualification mark of 1.92m — meaning that alongside the history, she has booked her place at the Commonwealth Games in the most emphatic fashion imaginable.

The Airport That Almost Stopped History

The context of this performance makes it all the more staggering. Just days ago, Pooja was among the 23 members of India’s contingent whose visa applications were marked “Unsuccessful” — and who were turned back from the airport on the eve of the championships. The reigning Asian High Jump champion faced the very real possibility of missing the competition entirely through an administrative failure entirely outside her control.

She got through. She got to Hong Kong. And then she cleared every bar that was put in front of her.

Whatever frustration, anxiety, or disruption that visa ordeal caused, Pooja channelled none of it into hesitation. She channelled all of it into the runway.

India’s New High Jump Queen

Pooja entered this championships as the reigning Asian High Jump champion. She leaves it as the greatest female high jumper in Indian history — the first to clear 1.93m, the current national record holder at both U20 and senior level, a Commonwealth Games qualifier, and the athlete who proved that a bureaucratic nightmare at an airport was nothing more than a minor inconvenience on the way to something historic.

India’s women’s high jump national record stood for thirteen years. It fell tonight.

It fell to a junior.

The U20 Asian Athletics Championships 2026 are being held in Hong Kong, China.