National Games athletics: Sachin hits a new high in javelin

Indian javelin throwers inspired by Neeraj Chopra aim for success; Sachin Yadav shines at National Games.

With Neeraj Chopra showing the way with his Olympic and World Championship golds, there is now a bunch of Indian javelin throwers who feel they can get on to the big stage too. And the group appears to be getting bigger and bigger.

Sachin Yadav is one of them. The 25-year-old from Uttar Pradesh produced a personal best 84.39m and broke the meet record by more than two metres while winning the gold in the 38th National Games at the Ganga Stadium here on Wednesday. With that, he climbed to the fifth rung in India’s all-time list in the event.

Still, Sachin was a bit disappointed.

“My goal was to achieve the World Championship automatic qualification mark (85.50m) but I missed it,” said Sachin. “I’m close to it and I should be able to achieve it in my next competition.”

Tall and well built, Sachin appeared to be pumped up today. And with his State-mate Rohit Yadav also uncorking two 80m throws, the battle for gold was intense. In the end, Sachin’s fifth round brought him the title beating Rohit.

At the other end, defending high jump champion Pooja was in a world of her own. While the rest of the field faded away at 1.79m, the 17-year-old from Haryana bettered Swapna Barman’s three-year-old Games record by one centimetre, clearing 1.84m, and then attempted 1.87 but failed in all her three attempts.

“I was the best junior high jumper in the country, now I want to be the best among seniors too. I wanted to do 1.87 but my health was not very good today,” said Pooja.