Sachin Yadav logged a personal best performance of 86.25M to finish fourth in Tokyo.
Credit: Reuters Photo
On a day when champion Neeraj Chopra failed to defend his javelin throw title, Sachin Yadav saved India the blushes by finishing a creditable fourth in the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
Sachin logged a personal best (PB) performance of 86.25 to finish fourth at the Japan National Stadium. Infact he finished just 40 centimetres shy of a medal.
On a day when no thrower managed to cross the 90M, mark Neeraj was ousted after the fifth and penultimate round with a best effort of 84.03M that left him eighth overall.
The 27-year-old fouled the fifth attempt to exit the competition at the same venue where he won a history-making Olympic gold back in 2021.
It was the first time since June 2015 that Neeraj had been beaten by a fellow Indian thrower, or that the two-time Olympian medallist had finished as low as eighth.
Only the top six athletes compete in the sixth and final round and it was surprisingly Yadav who ended up being India's representative.
Sachin's best throw of 86.27M, which came in the very first attempt, was a personal best performance and he bested not just Neeraj, but also German star Julian Weber (86.11M), and Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem (82.75M) among others.
The gold went Keshorn Walcott (88.16M) of Trinidad and Tobago, with Grenada's Anderson Peters (87.38M) clinching silver and USA's Curtis Thompson (86.67M) annexing the bronze medal.
(with agency/World Athletics Media inputs)