New Delhi: Rinku Hooda, cheered on by a number of his family members, twice broke the championship record in the F46 javelin on a humid Monday evening to win India’s second gold of the World Para Athletics Championships here.
The 26-year-old produced an opening throw of 63.81m to better the existing meet mark of 61.89m and take an early lead and held the pole position till the third series when Cuban Guillermo Varona Gonzalez overtook him with a 63.34m throw.
Rinku wrested back the initiative with a 66.37m throw as the championship record was rewritten thrice in the space of minutes. Double Paralympics bronze medallist and 2017 world champion Sundar Singh Gurjar upstaged Gonzalez in the fifth series with a throw of 64.76m – his best effort of the season – to claim silver. Among the 11 competitors, four achieved their personal best while seven recorded their season’s best.
The F46 classification is for athletes with arm deficiencies that involve unilateral arm amputation, or impaired muscle power, or passive range of movement in their arms.
“The conditions were favourable. Today was my day, so everything was in my favour. I had a few good warm-up throws that gave me confidence,” Rinku, who marked his medal with an exuberant celebration, said. Hailing from a farming family at Dhamar village in Haryana’s Rohtak district, Rinku lost his left arm as a three-year-old in a threshing machine accident while playing. He picked up para sports as a youngster and is trained by elder brother Anuj.
A silver medallist at the 2023 and 2024 Worlds and 2023 Asian Para Games, Rinku was yet to win a senior international gold coming into the competition. “I wanted to end that streak quite desperately. I was gunning for a 68-69m throw but that didn’t happen. But it will happen for sure,” he said.
Gurjar, who claimed his second World medal after an eight-year gap, was not satisfied with his effort. “I am happy that India has won two medals, but personally I am not happy with my performance. I had cervical pain that affected my performance,” he said.
Cuban Gonzalez took the third spot while India’s Ajeet Singh Yadav finished fourth despite a season’s best of 61.77m. “I am not at all happy with my performance. I had the best training of my career coming into this event, the conditions were good, but somehow I couldn’t get my technique in sync,” Yadav rued.
