Sarvesh Kushare

Sarvesh Anil Kushare was born on 17 June 1995 in Devargaon, a small village in Maharashtra’s Nashik district. His father, Anil, hoped for engineering; the son wanted the bar. Physical education teacher Raosaheb Jadhav spotted him at Dr Bhosale Vidyalaya matching older boys in Class 7, then — when Kushare switched from scissors to Fosbury — helped the village build a landing pit from corn husks, fodder, cotton, and tailor waste. In 2016 he joined the Indian Army as a Naib Subedar in the 101 Field Regiment, trained at the Army Sports Institute in Pune, and later moved with coach Jithin Thomas — himself a former Asian silver medallist — to the Anju Bobby George Foundation Academy in Bengaluru.

The early international sheet was solid without being loud: South Asian Games gold in Kathmandu (2019), Asian Championships silver in Bangkok (2023), fourth at the Hangzhou Asian Games behind Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim and South Korea’s Woo Sang-hyeok. Paris 2024 ended in qualification at 2.15 m. The leap that rewrote the story came in Tokyo in September 2025. Kushare became the first Indian man to reach a World Championships high-jump final and cleared 2.28 m for a share of sixth — still India’s best Worlds finish in the event.

Form in 2026 finally matched the ambition. On 27 June in Bhubaneswar he skipped the old national mark and went straight to 2.31 m, breaking Tejaswin Shankar’s eight-year record and becoming the first Indian over 2.30 m. Two weeks later, on his Diamond League debut in Monaco, he took third at 2.26 m. Glasgow on 27 July brought Commonwealth silver at 2.25 m — same height as Jamaica’s Romaine Beckford, who won gold on countback after clearing that bar first time while Kushare needed three. Shankar, out of the final early with decathlon still ahead, stayed trackside to coach him through. Kushare has already pointed at Asian Games gold and a mark near 2.35 m.

Indian high jump spent years living in Shankar’s shadow and in the gap under 2.30 m. Kushare’s village pit-to-Worlds path is the answer to that gap: Army stability, a coach who had already lived Asian podiums, and a late surge that put him on the same Scotstoun sheet as Chopra’s throws week. The next test is whether 2.31 m was a ceiling-break or a new floor — Asian Games colour, another Worlds final above sixth, and whether LA28 asks for something Paris never saw.