Medals, personal best not withstanding, Indian athletes seek bigger prizes

Sachin Yadav aims for World Championships qualification despite silver medal at Asian Athletics Championships.

A personal best and a silver medal in his international debut was not enough to satisfy Sachin Yadav.

The 25-year-old finished second behind Arshad Nadeem on the final day at the Asian Athletics Championships but insisted his target remains qualifying for the World Championships.

“There were some mistakes made and I could not train as much as I wanted because of ankle and shoulder injuries. I am not very satisfied but am happy to go back with a medal. I will now go back, work hard and try to get better throws in the next competitions,” Sachin said in an interaction from Gumi, South Korea.

“My body was a bit right in the beginning, I was unable to feel the rhythm and get my actions smooth. I even took help from Yashveer Singh in between to relax my muscles a little and it felt better in the last two throws,” he admitted.

Animesh Kujur, who also set a new national record of 20.32s in the 200m, breaking his own previous mark set last month, too tried to take motivation from his performance but wasn’t too happy.

“I knew it would be hard here because there were faster athletes competing and I was confident I could better my time if I could stay with them.

“I always thought my start is not good but I didn’t t let that affect me negatively. At the curve, I felt I was in a good position and tried to maintain that till the finish. But I wasn’t very happy during the medal ceremony because getting the gold and having the national anthem played is a different feeling medal ceremony,” he shrugged.