What’s the story?
At the Indian Grand Prix Athletics Meet in Patiala, 29-year-old Devender Singh became the second Indian javelin thrower after Neeraj Chopra to qualify for the World Championships to be held in August. The qualification mark for the event was set at 83m and Singh shot an impressive 84.57m throw that made him the 15th athlete from India to qualify for this year’s Championships, which will be held in London.
With his effort, he also picked up the gold medal for the event, as Samarthjeet Singh and Rajender Singh took second and third place with throws of 76.85m and 76.30m respectively. Devender bettered his personal best of 80.21m by more than four meters, which he had set last year in Bengaluru.
Unlike other athletes, he is not a part of the national camp and trains separately under coach Kashinath Nayak in Patiala. He said that he has made a lot of changes to his training regime, saying, “I used to train purely for strength in the past. But now I’ve worked on my core strength. I used to be 107kg but I’m training for speed now and I’ve lost nearly 20kg.”
In case you didn’t know...
Neeraj Chopra, who is the world junior champion, was the first Indian thrower to qualify for the World Championships after throwing an 83.32m effort at the Asian Grand Prix in Jiaxing.
The heart of the matter
Singh has been part of the athletics circuit for quite a few years and was in line to compete in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi before he fractured his elbow in training. Since then, he has won two gold medals – one at the Asian GP in 2015 and one at the Federation Cup.
What’s next?
The World Athletics Championships are scheduled to be held in London from August 4th to August 13th this year. India’s prospects in the javelin throw event suddenly look better with both Devender and Neeraj qualifying. However, it remains to be seen how well they fare in the main event.
Author’s Take
With both Devender Singh and Neeraj Chopra featuring among the top eight javelin throwers in the world, the future looks bright for Indian javelin throwing. There is a pretty good chance that at least one of Devender and Neeraj comes away with a medal from the World Championships which will stand India in good stead to bag medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
