At the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021, Sumit Antil broke the F64 javelin throw world record three times to win the gold medal for India. He went into the competition with a personal best throw of 62.88m and he ended up with a world record 68.55m.
This was Antil at his peak. It would've been absolutely fine if he wouldn't come up with such performances in future. At that moment, it felt like that was the highlight of his career.
But it was not.
Remarkably, Antil kept producing stellar performances since the Tokyo Games and pushed the world record all the way to 73m. His throw of 73.29m at the Hangzhou Asian Para Games this year is the farthest anybody has thrown across all categories in para-athletics.
Gold medal with world record of 73.29. Thank you everyone for love and support! Will try to also bring glory to the nation in future competitions. JAI HIND !�� pic.twitter.com/rLFKTbnCjb
- Sumit antil (@sumit_javelin) October 26, 2023
Months before Hangzhou, Antil was in action at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships in Paris. In his first throw, Antil came up with an effort of 70.83 to smash his own world record and claim his first ever gold medal at the World Championships.
There's dominance and there's Sumit's dominance on the field. At the Paris World Championships, the second-best throw from Australia's Michal Burian was 65.21m, more than five metres short of Sumit's best. At the Asian Para Games, Sri Lanka's Arachchige Kodithuwakku came up with the second-best throw which was nine metres short of Sumit's mark.
Breaking world records and smashing the competition has now become a norm for Sumit. In fact, before going Hangzhou, Sumit was not feeling the pressure to win the gold, he was breaking sweat on prospects of creating yet another world record. "I will try to return with the gold. My aim will be to break the world record which I created in the World Championships in Paris this year," he told before departing to Hangzhou.
More medals and more world records are in store
The ultimate aim, according to Sumit, is to breach the 80m barrier.
"The Para Asian Games gold and the world record are a thing of the past and now my eyes are on the next target. Currently, I am preparing for the World Championship in Kobe, Japan in May. Apart from this, my aim is to cross the 80m barrier sometime in my life," Antil told PTI recently.
A few years back, it would've been deemed ridiculous to talk about the 80m, but going by Sumit's marked improvement year on year, there is a genuine chance to achieve it.
Finally throw over 70m (70.17) New world record in f64 category. Thank you all for continuous support. pic.twitter.com/lMxdYZc6mS
- Sumit antil (@sumit_javelin) May 6, 2023
The more immediate aim for the 25-year-old is to continue the good form, stay injury free and win his second Paralympic gold medal in Paris next year. The host city has been great for his career so far.
"Paris has been lucky for me anyway, where I have been playing since 2018 and have been giving my best performance. Till now I have played there 3-4 times and I have not faced any problem of conditioning. The world record of 70.83m was made in the World Championship 2023 in Paris itself," he said. "My preparations are going very well. Some technical shortcomings came to light in Hangzhou which I am working on. I am also making every possible effort to remain injury free."
It has been some journey for Antil. He wanted to become a wrestler but at 17, he suffered a terrible motorbike accident, which resulted in amputation of his leg. He took up javelin two years later and with the help of a prosthetic leg, he started competing and eventually winning medals at the international level.
If this year and the previous ones are taken into context, it shows us that there's a lot more to come and the ceiling is very high for Antil.
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Sumit Antil is ESPN India's Para-Athlete of the Year (2023).