Javelin Thrower Annu Rani Sets National Record, Becomes The First Indian Woman To Cross 60m Mark

First Indian Woman Javelin Thrower To Cross 60m Mark

Annu Rani became the first Indian woman javelin thrower to cross the 60m mark on the third day of the 56th Open National Athletics Championships on Thursday by smashing her own national record. She represented Railways and created her fourth national record in two years. The 23-year-old hails from Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.

Annu threw the javelin to a distance of 60.01m to strike out her own earlier mark of 59.87m, which she made in July during the National Inter-State Championships in Hyderabad. She has also bagged bronze in the 2014 Incheon Asian Games.

K Rashmi won the bronze with 51.56m while Poonam Rani of ONGC bagged silver with 56.73m. All the top three finishers in men’s jump cleared 2.20m for the first time in Indian athletics history. Tejaswin Shankar from Delhi won Gold with an effort of 2.2m while Chetan of Services and Sreenith Mohan of Kerala bagged the silver and bronze respectively.

Commonwealth Youth Games champion Tejaswin added 5cms to meet mark of 2.2m held by Jitin Thomas since 2012. 17-year-old Tejaswin, who won a silver in the South Asian Games in Guwahati this year, surprised many of his senior opponents. He posted a world leading mark in the event Under-18 category to win the Gold.

The Logical Indian feels proud of such achievement and hopes many other aspirants come forward and participate for India’s glory.