 "Who is Sachin Yadav, National Games 2025 champion and India's latest javelin sensation?")
Sachin Yadav had a historic day in Dehradun on Wednesday as he won the javelin throw gold medal at the National Games 2025. The 25-year-old men’s javelin throw athlete, who hails from Uttar Pradesh, clinched the gold with a throw of 84.39m at the Ganga Athletics Ground, MPSC.
This was Sachin Yadav’s personal best throw, surpassing the 82.69m that he managed at the Indian Grand Prix in Bengaluru last year. Most importantly, Sachin Yadav also broke the National Games record.
The previous National Games record of 82.23m had come from Rajinder Singh in 2015. The national record for javelin throw is 89.94m and belongs to Neeraj Chopra.
Rohit Yadav (80.47m) and Vikash Sharma (79.33m) won the silver and bronze respectively at the National Games 2025.
While Sachin Yadav qualified for the Asian Athletics Championships 2025 by crossing the 75.36m throw criteria, he failed to qualify for the World Athletics Championships 2025, which has a qualifying standard of 85.50m.
“My goal was to achieve the World Athletics automatic qualification mark but I missed,” Sachin Yadav said. “I’m close to my goal and should be able to achieve 85.50m in the next competition.”
Nonetheless, an 84.39m throw has made Sachin Yadav a javelin sensation in India with many seeing him as the future Neeraj Chopra. From India, only Neeraj Chopra, Kishore Jena, Shivpal Singh and Davinder Singh have managed throws bigger than Sachin Yadav’s 84.39m.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsClip of the massive throw by Sachin Yadav 🔥 pic.twitter.com/og72tF0Dfq
— Vishank Razdan (@VishankRazdan) February 12, 2025
Who is Sachin Yadav?
Sachin Yadav hails from Khekra village near Baghpat in western Uttar Pradesh. His father is a farmer and he grew up in his village. Sachin Yadav’s javelin throw talent was spotted by neighbour Sandeep Yadav during a local cricket match. Sandeep himself was a javelin athlete in the past.
“I was bowling when he saw me. It was just one of those 10-over matches that people play for fun. But Sandeep bhai said my shoulder speed was good and I was bowling fast so he thought I might be good in javelin as well," Sachin Yadav told Sportstar. “He told me I should play a sport. He said I had a good height, was well built and therefore, was perfectly suited for javelin.”
Sandeep started training Sachin Yadav when the latter was already 19 but there was a belief had he was special. Sandeep also helped the youngster with buying javelins.
“I started throwing a bamboo javelin that Sandeep bhai bought for me. He bought me my first real javelin too. He taught me the basics. He used to be my first coach in a way. During the lockdown, I’d throw in our khet (fields),” he shared.
However, Sachin Yadav started facing multiple injury issues due to a lack of proper training and coaching guidance. After fracturing his throwing elbow twice in 2021, he was on the verge of quitting the sport but his family encouraged him to continue playing.
In 2022, things started to change for Sachin Yadav as he recovered from elbow injuries and surgery and won the UP state competition with a throw of 72.06m, reported Sportstar. In 2023, he won the bronze at the Federation Cup with a throw of 80.27m.
In 2024, he started training under Naval Singh in Delhi. Naval Singh has coached some of India’s top javelin throwers including Paralympic champions Sumit Antil and Navdeep Singh. Under Naval’s guidance, Sachin Yadav has been consistently crossing 80m throws.
He now hopes to make a big name for himself on the international stage and win an Olympic medal for India.
“I want to set the national record. I want to qualify and medal at the 2025 World Championships, and after that, I want to medal in the 2028 Olympics," Sachin Yadav said.
Sachin Yadav is 6-foot 5-inch tall and weighs 107kg. He has the physique to challenge the best in the world but needs to remain injury-free and improve his game consistently. This will be the next big challenge for him as he aims to emulate Neeraj Chopra’s success.
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