All uphill for army’s javelin thrower DP Manu

In the first half of the 2022 track and field season, DP Manu established himself as India's second-best javelin thrower with a personal best of 84.35m.

The mark was recorded in June at the Inter-State National Athletics Championships in Chennai. However, Manu failed to breach the 85m-mark at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games and finished fifth with a throw of 82.28m.

At the Services Athletics Championships held last week in Jalahalli on the outskirts of Bengaluru in Karnataka, Manu won gold with a throw of 79.98m.

Manu’s army coach Kashinath Naik, a 2010 Commonwealth Games medalist, attributed the dip in performance at the Services meeting to the short break after the Commonwealth Games.

In an exclusive chat with Sportskeeda, he said:

“There wasn’t enough time to prepare for the Services competition,” Naik explained. “We have two more competitions coming up. We hope Manu will be able to come close to his personal best of 84.35m.”

Manu will compete at the National Games starting on September 30 and the Open National Athletics Championships, which are scheduled to start on October 15 in Bengaluru.

Since the stakes are not high at the aforementioned competitions, it might not motivate the army thrower to push his limits.

Naik has set an ambitious target for Manu

Manu's coach Naik, however, has set a lofty target for the 22-year-old javelin throw athlete.

“The goal is to achieve good results in international competitions in 2023,” Naik said. “if all goes as per plans, Manu should be able to go beyond 85m during competition.”

The first major competition of 2023 will be the Belgrade World Athletics Championships. Manu has two options to qualify for the event - one is via global ranking points and the other is to achieve a qualifying standard of 85.2m.

The Asian Games in China in 2023 is another important competition that Manu aims to qualify for and perform up to his potential.

“The current global ranking is below 30 but it keeps fluctuating as the season progresses. But we will aim to go beyond 85m next season,” Naik said of the future plans.

Manu focusing on strength training

According to Naik, the focus during the off-season will be to improve strength so that Manu can achieve the target of crossing 85m in the competition.

“It will be a good balance of strength and technique to perform steadily at the domestic as well as international,” Naik revealed.

Manu missed the 2022 Eugene World Athletics Championships held in Oregon, USA, as his global ranking points weren’t enough to fetch him an indirect entry.

India’s Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra had an automatic qualification and eventually won silver in Eugene. Rohit Yadav, who gained entry via ranking points, entered the final but finished at the bottom of the table.

Chopra recently ended his global season with a Diamond League Final Trophy in Zurich. There appears to be a huge gap between Chopra and other Indian javelin throwers, including Manu, who is country’s second-best at the moment.

While Chopra has government and private sponsors to aid him in competing and practicing on foreign soil, the promising army thrower is still in the process of establishing himself. He will need to achieve more to impress the government agency for a scholarship under TOPS (Target Olympic Podium Scheme).

“A good performance by Manu in the 2023 season will certainly impress government agency for a scholarship,” a senior athletics coach concluded.