New Delhi: Star Indian athlete Annu Rani made history on the last day of the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham on August 7. She became the first Indian woman to win a medal in the javelin throw. In her fourth effort to take third place, she threw her spear 60 meters away.
Kelsey-Lee Barber of Australia took the Gold home in the final round with a throw of 64.43 meters.
Before Rani, Kashinath Naik and Olympic Champion Neeraj Chopra won bronze and gold medals in men’s javelin throws, respectively.
Even before winning the bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games on Sunday, Annu was by far, the greatest female javelin thrower in India. The bronze medalist at the 2014 Asian Games has topped the domestic circuit for almost ten years and has already broken the record nine times. Since 2014, no thrower has tampered with the national record book.
The star athlete started her journey by using bamboo and sugarcane as a javelin to practice while searching for a coach in a small village of Meerut.
Annu began frequently tossing the 600-gram javelin beyond the 45-meter mark at school without any specialized instruction. The young girl’s talent pleased Annu’s physical education instructor, who encouraged her to compete in district and state competitions.
After passing the hurdles like lack of infrastructure and inadequate training facilities and struggles typical to the experience of a rising female athlete Annu Rani became the first ever female medal winner in the commonwealth games for India.
Despite being a center for sports production, Meerut’s district lacks suitable training facilities. Its busiest stadium, Kailash Prakash, is frequently crowded and still lacks a synthetic track.
A few years ago, a minor step was made when the village administration assigned an empty plot of land to be utilised as a training area.
