The 23-year-old jumper from the Kottayam district of Kerala shot into prominence when he broke the long standing record of Mohinder Singh Gill at the Guwahati Asian Grand Prix in 2007. In fact, last year, he claimed gold medals in all the three legs of the AGP. The same year, Renjith had also dominated the event in the Kolkata Federation Cup.

Though Renjith went on to win the gold in the Asian Athletics championships in Amman, his jump of 17.19m was wind-aided and didn’t go into the record books.

In August 2007 , the Indian jumper, however, failed to live up to expectations in the Osaka World Championships. He got eliminated in the preliminary round. His best in Osaka was 16.38m. Thereafter, his performance slipped, and faced defeat in domestic competitions too. Going by Renjith’s performance in the first half of 2007, it seems he is in the best form so far.

The coach, however, didn’t want to divulge details, saying the target is Beijing. “We want to look ahead,” he said. He has also set a difficult task of 17.45m for his trainee.

But Irving will determine Renjith’s training and competition schedule for the next six months. Pannu said: “I am yet to contact Irving. So, I can’t give details of the training plans. But it will be decided by him. I will only assist him (Irving),” Pannu said over the phone from Patiala.