CHENNAI: New season, new hope. With a loaded year (Commonwealth, Asian Games and the World Championships before the beginning of October), the first tournament of the season would throw up opportunities to assess and build upon their success and even on failure. As throwers from all over the country converge on Patiala, for Tajinder Pal Singh Toor, this would be one heck of a year.
Last year, the ending was cruel. Despite throwing the iron to a new national record (21.49m) before the Olympics, he managed only one legal throw of 19.99m in Tokyo. The 27-year-old shot-putter had to undergo surgery on his throwing arm followed by rehab. In between, he found time to get married and joined the national camp in Patiala in mid-November.
That gave him enough time to reconfigure and reboot. He would be hoping to pick up the pieces and build towards the three mega events later this year. The National Throws Championships on Sunday would offer him that chance to throw and assess.
Tajinder’s coach, Mohinder Singh Dhillon, is taking this event as a build-up. It’s the first event of the season and he would be happy if his ward crosses 20m. Though Tajinder started training from November, it was not until late December that he started increasing his load. “From January, we have increased load and now we have reached the max,” said Dhillon. “His wrist is fine and we are expecting somewhere in the range of 20.30-20.40m on Sunday. As theseason progresses, he should be crossing the 21m mark and touching 21.40-21.50m.”
Since it’s a season with Worlds slated in July before the CWG, Dhillon said they are planning to take all events step by step. “Asian Games we should be defending the gold,” he said. “Commonwealth Games would be a big challenge and we feel winning a medal is possible. That’s why it would be a challenge for us.
There are good throwers in CWG but I think we should be among the top four but so if we can manage a good throw on that particular day, a medal is definitely possible.” Olympic bronze medallist New Zealand’s Tomas Walsh, with a personal best of 21.90m, has already thrown 21.26m this season. His teammate Jacko Gill qualified with a throw of 21.55 last year and yet to throw this season. Chukwuebuka Enekwechi of Nigeria has a personal best of 21.80m and qualified with a throw of 21.43m last year.
The Worlds in Oregon is in their mind too. Tajinder had qualified last June with a throw of 21.20m. His coach however did not want to just make the numbers. “We have to do well during the build-up and must show promise before going to the Worlds,” he said. “We have to show that we are good enough to participate in Worlds so our performance needs to be good.”The throws nationals will be followed by Indian Grand Prix 1 and 2 and the Federation Cup, and for Tajinder the focus would be in domestic events. As for training and competition abroad, Dhillon said that would be decided later. Their choice of destination is the US around April-May. All depends on Athletics Federation of India though.
As of now, Dhillon is happy with Tajinder’s progress. “Let’s hope for the best,” he said.The first Throws Nationals will see 67 athletes, including 29 women, compete. Besides Tajinder, all eyes would be on veteran discus thrower Seem Antil. Javelin throw would get that tinge bit of more attention after Tokyo 2020 gold medallist Neeraj Chopra last year.
Since he is not competing, the next lot of javelin throwers like Sahil Silwal, Abhishek Singh and Rohit Yadav would be in focus. The AFI has introduced the throws and competitions to the calendar this year.