Who is Sachin Yadav? Indian athlete who outperformed Neeraj Chopra at World Championships

India’s Sachin Yadav made headlines at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo by finishing fourth in the men’s javelin final with a personal best throw of 86.27m. The young athlete narrowly missed out on a medal but outperformed the likes of defending champion Neeraj Chopra, who ended eighth, and Pakistan’s Olympic gold medallist Arshad Nadeem, who took 10th place.

A memorable outing for Sachin Yadav as he finished on No. 4 in his first-ever World Athletics Championships! 🤌🔥 pic.twitter.com/T21AWRxOly

— Olympic Khel (@OlympicKhel) September 18, 2025

Who is Sachin Yadav?

Born on October 25, 1999, Sachin hails from Khekra village in Uttar Pradesh. He loved playing cricket as a child and wanted to take up the sport professionally. However, his athletic potential was spotted by his neighbor Sandeep Yadav during a local cricket match, and he encouraged him to take up javelin throw at the age of 19.

Sachin left cricket and started practicing javelin. He won gold for Uttar Pradesh Police at the All India Police Athletics Championships in 2024 with a throw of 84.21m. He also broke the 30-year-old meet record with his massive throw. He then won gold at the Indian Grand Prix 3 with an 82.69m throw.

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Sachin won a silver medal at the National Open Athletics Championships the same year with a throw of 79.80m. In February this year, the 25-year-old registered a personal best throw of 84.39m to win gold at the 38th National Games in Dehradun. This also became the meet record.

Sachin won silver at the 26th Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, throwing 85.16m. He fell just 1.24m short of gold medalist Arshad Nadeem. During the inaugural Neeraj Chopra Classic meet in July, he narrowly missed the podium, finishing fourth with 82.33m.

Sachin is now garnering attention for finishing ahead of Neeraj Chopra at the 2025 World Championships. Neeraj had entered the competition as a favourite, but Sachin stole the limelight in the final with his strong performance.

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Sachin’s first attempt of 86.27m put him immediately in medal contention; however, he eventually slipped to fourth place as Trinidad and Tobago’s Keshorn Walcott produced a season-best 88.16m to take gold. Grenada’s Anderson Peters claimed silver with 87.38m, while the USA’s Curtis Thompson took bronze with 86.67m.