Sachin Yadav showcases resilience in winning Asian Javelin silver medal

India added six more medals to its kitty, four silver and two bronze, on the final day to finish the Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi with 24 medals, including eight gold and 10 silver. Only China finished higher on the medal table than India with 32 medals, including 19 gold and 9 silver. Japan, Kazakhstan and Qatar completed the top five ahead of host South Korea.

India had finished third behind China and Bahrain in the track and field competition in the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games with 29 medals including six gold and 14 silver. A glance at the medal table will reveal that Bahrain picked up just two medals in Gumi. And a bit more effort will show that the Bahrain team in Gumi comprised just four male and three female athletes.

This is not to belittle the medal winners but to suggest that celebrations must be laced with a wider, if not a more complete, perspective. The arrival of a few not so familiar Indian faces in the continental competition augurs well and suggests that if all the stakeholders come together in making a concerted effort, India can remain very relevant at this level.

Sachin Yadav dug deep into the reserves of resilience to win silver behind Paris 2024 Olympic Games champion Arshad Nadeem (Pakistan). Trailing outside the medal bracket after four throws short of the 80m mark, he lifted himself to third place with his fifth try over 83.08m and won silver with a personal best effort of 85.16m on his final throw.

There was a National Record for Animesh Kujur as he won the men’s 200m bronze in 20.32 seconds. He shaved off eight-hundredths of a second from the mark he set in the Federation Cup in Kochi on April 24, 2025. He now owns the three fastest times by an Indian sprinter over the distance.

The Indian women’s 4x100m relay team claimed silver behind China in 43.86 seconds, which was outside the National Record of 43.37 seconds set in 2021. Srabani Nanda, S Sneha, Abhinaya Rajarajan and Nithya Gandhe may have expected to medal in the absence of Bahrain but beating a Thailand quartet to silver was a surprise indeed.

Parul Chaudhary won her second silver medal in the competition, clocking 15:15.33 in the women’s 5000m on Saturday. Like in the 3000m Steeplechase a day earlier, she knew that Kazakhstand’s Norah Jeruto Tanui would be hard nut to crack. She beat Japan’s Yuma Yamamoto in the race for the silver medal, winning by just over one and a half seconds.

Pooja will remember the last day of the Asian Championships in Gumi not just for the bronze in the women’s 800m, but perhaps more for her personal best time of 2:01.89 that saw her rise to the all-time top 10 list of Indian runners over the distance. It  may not be long before she nails a sub-2-minute two-lapper and joins Tintu Luka and Shiny Wilson in an exclusive club. 

India’s other medal on Saturday came from Vithiya Ramaraj won the 400m Hurdles bronze, clocking 56.46 seconds. The road ahead will be tougher for the athletes, their coaches, the support staff and the athletics ecosystem at large. It is one thing to do well at the continental level, be it in the Asian Athletics Championships or the Asian Games, but altogether another to carry such success to the global level like only Neeraj Chopra has done.

The transition calls for athletes to have a greater understanding of what needs to be done to challenge the world’s best. And every sensible athlete will tell us that the challenges get stiffer not only in the higher echelons of track and field sport but also in the pursuit of better performances.