Video: A 19-year-old from Haryana becomes the first Indian athlete to set a world record
Neeraj Chopra won gold with a javelin throw of 86.48 metres at the World Championships, a world record in the U-20 category.
Take a bow, Neeraj Chopra.
This young athlete from Haryana, still in his teenage years, has achieved a distinction no other Indian has.
At just 19, young Chopra is considered a prodigious talent in the javelin throw event. And on Saturday at the World Under-20 Championships in Bydgoszcz in Poland, he showed why he is rated so highly.
At the finals of the event, Chopra threw a distance of 79.66 metre in his first attempt, which put him in second place.
But that didn't deter him one bit. In his next attempt, he pulled off something extraordinary and unparalleled, a throw of 86.48 metre.
That is a world record in the Under-20 category. And it's also the first time an Indian athlete has set a world record at any level, either senior or junior.
As it turns out, even he wasn't expecting it. In an interview after his remarkable achievement, a triumphant Chopra admitted that he was expecting it to go a distance of 82 or 83 metres, and was taken aback by the actual distance.
The youngster, who comes from a village in Haryana, transitioned to the javelin from volleyball after coaches spotted his special talent. He tied the national senior record at the South Asian Games this year with a throw of 82.23 metres.
The next step? The senior world record stands at 98.48 metre. And considering the kind of prodigious talent Chopra has shown, he might have his eye set on it.