Sumit Antil says that some day, he would like to experience the feeling of throwing the javelin beyond the 80m mark.
“When I will be at my peak, just once in life, I want to touch the 80m mark. I want to know how it feels when the javelin crosses that distance,” he says a day after defending his Paralympic gold medal in Paris.
Sumit Antil is clear that at the age of 26, he’s not yet at his peak.
“In our sport, athletes peak around the age of 31 or 32,” he points out.
His self-assessment about his peak notwithstanding, Sumit Antil’s performance to win the gold medal at the Paris Paralympics was one of the most dominant at the global stage from an Indian athlete. Sumit Antil not only set a new Paralympic record of 70.59m at Stade de France on Monday (he also holds the world record in the F64 class), he also three times went past the previous Paralympic record of 68.55m, set by himself to claim gold at Tokyo 2020.
In his six throws on Monday night, there was just one foul — which was when he deliberately crossed the line because he was unhappy with his effort. But even with that throw — where the javelin had flown to a distance of 67m — he would have ended up on the podium on the night. In fact, all six of his throws by themselves would have fetched him a medal at Paris 2024. At least four of them, including the one he deliberately fouled, would have earned him a silver ahead of eventual silver medallist from Sri Lanka, Dulan Kodithuwakku.
Given his dominance in the event, it’s natural to try and imply that at this stage, Sumit’s only competition is himself. But he shoots that narrative down quickly.
“I don’t consider anyone in a competition as inferior to me. I never say things like ‘my competition is only with myself’. That would not be the right thing to say. But what I am mindful of is not focusing on anyone else. I focus on what I can do better. In the coming year, I want to push my personal best to 75m,” he says.
Another marker of how dominant Sumit Antil has been in the javelin event is the fact that he has been carrying a niggle in his back for more than a year. Besides this, he felt the weight of expectations pretty heavily coming into Paris. He goes as far as to reveal that he could not sleep at all on the day leading to his final.
“This is nothing new. This happens before every big event. The adrenaline is so high that I usually cannot sleep a wink before such events. But I knew this would happen to me. So now I have stopped fretting about it. I spent the night just lying in bed, and watching clips from Bollywood movies like Bhaag Milkha Bhaag,” he says.
“There was no crowd in Tokyo when I competed. Here in Paris, the stands were full. But more importantly, there were not too many expectations from me in Tokyo. So I was a little nervous yesterday. I felt some pressure here. Getting to the top is easy. Staying there is very difficult. If an athlete does not feel pressure, they’re probably not taking the sport seriously. Or they’re some different level of legends. Neither gold medal was easy to get. In Tokyo, I was not injured. But for the past one and a half years, I have been carrying a niggle in my back, which has been hampering me.”
Triumph over adversity
In the coming months, as Sumit Antil trains his javelin at the World Championships in October next year, his focus will be in finessing his technique. It matters because his blocking leg is an artificial limb, which limits the pace he can generate off his run-up, which can then be transferred into his throw.
“Contact with the ground is one of the biggest factors that Olympians can have, which I don’t. My left leg, which is my blocking leg, is an artificial limb. It’s difficult to balance on it. There are just two nails at the base of the prosthetic that get a grip on the ground. Balancing your entire body on just two nails is very difficult. After your hip has done its role while throwing, the blocking leg has to move into action. I was losing my balance a couple of times yesterday which is why I couldn’t throw even better,” Sumit Antil says.
Sumit Antil revealed that heading into his event at Paris, he received a message from an old friend: two-time Olympic medallist Neeraj Chopra.
“Every fortnight or a month, Neeraj bhai and I exchange messages. He knows that any athlete can get overawed by the big stage of the Olympics or Paralympics. So they can forget to focus on their technique. Maybe that was what he wanted to warn me against. And in a sport like javelin, technique is the only thing that matters. So he sent me a message before the Paris Paralympics. It was ‘Don’t try anything new.’”
That’s exactly what Sumit Antil did on a night culminating in a Paralympics record and a gold medal on the biggest stage. Nothing new. Just the same ol’, same ol’.
