mudalur a village in the tuticorin district of tamil nadu has been renowned for its sweet dish muscoth halwa now mudalur has something else to be proud of courtesy jeswin aldrin the grandson of joseph abraham who made muscoth halwa popular in 1960saldrin won gold in the mens long jump event at the recentlyconcluded first leg of indian grand prix igp at thiruvananthapuramhis familys thriving sweet business notwithstanding longjump was jeswins calling right from his school days initially my father wasnt too keen on me pursuing sports but as i began to win medals in the bigger events he relented my family has been a pillar of support the 20yearold told toi he crossed an impressive 820m at the igp to outsmart the seasoned mohammed anees yahiya 770m jeswins effort was just 2cm short of the qualification mark set for the world championships later this year and 6cm short of m sreeshankars national record sreeshankar had skipped the event as he was training for the upcoming world indoors in belgrade interestingly jeswin had switched to high jump briefly with his best being 185m but moved back to long jump about five years ago the trio sreeshankar jeswin and anees will be closely tracked in what promises to be a busy year with events such as the worlds commonwealth games and asian games i was targeting 8m but finishing with 820m was definitely a surprise the target is to continue improving said jeswin who is currently coached by twotime world championship triple jumper medallist yoandris francis betanzos at the jsws inspire institute of sport iis jeswin had caught everyones attention when he produced a jump of 797m during the south zone junior athletics meet in kerala last february before training under betanzos jeswin was coached by frenchman antony yaich for about two and half yearsjeswin a secondyear student at the madras christian college believes he will only get better in the coming months the final jump is an area i am working on apart from that i work hard on my fitness and staying in the best shape possible he said despite following a strict diet regime for the better part of the year jeswin does indulge in halwa each time he is home his former coach antony would often complain that the youngsters hard work goes for a toss when he comes back home and feasts on halwa revealed jeswins uncle simon isaac a string of highprofile tournaments in the coming months mean that jeswin has to be at the peak of his fitness and form for that to happen he may have to forego having his favourite sweet dish for now