Breaking records for fun, Sumit Antil's burgeoning legacy should not be diminished by para-athlete tag

Haryana has a long history of producing world-class athletes, especially in wrestling in which its rich legacy comprises multiple Olympic medallists. The north Indian state is also becoming synonymous with another sport these days — the track and field discipline of javelin throw.

Neeraj Chopra was responsible for bringing javelin throw into the Indian sporting mainstream with a flurry of medals at the Olympics as well as in the World Championships, becoming a household name after winning gold in the Tokyo Olympics and nearly producing an encore in the Paris Games last month.

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It’s not just able-bodied athletes from the state who are successful at a global level though. The sport of javelin throw has not one but two Olympic champions from Haryana, with Sumit Antil retaining the gold medal that he had won in the Tokyo Paralympics three years ago in dominant fashion in Paris on Monday.

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It’s not just the fact that Chopra and Antil are of the same age and are from the same state and play the same sport — they remarkably consistent in their respective disciplines and have managed to stay on top of their game for years now, to the point where anything less than a gold medal feels almost like an upset.

For Antil, who was chosen as India’s male flag-bearer for last week’s opening ceremony, dominating the sport of para-javelin isn’t something new. Introduced to para-javelin in 2017, he would break the world record in the F64 category just two years later in the World Para-Athletics Grand Prix in Italy and also win silver in the World Championships in the same year, and would break his own record in that event.

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Winning silver medals, however, would soon become a thing of the past as he would go on to win gold in the Tokyo Paralympics and follow it up with a gold in back-to-back editions of the World Championships in Paris (2023) and Kobe (2024). He had also won gold in the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China last year.

It’s not just the fact that winning gold in events across the world has become something of a habit for Antil — it’s the manner in which he wins those medals that really sets him apart in the world of para-athletics and makes him a credible contender for the tag of India’s greatest Paralympian of all time.

Antil, after all, has been rewriting his own records for fun every time he’s won a gold medal. He would break his own world record that he had set in 2019 at the Tokyo Paralympics two years later. A couple of years later, he would set the current world record of 73.29 metres in the Hangzhou Asian Games.

Sumit Antil gets better and better with every throw 💥🚀#ParalympicGamesParis2024 #ParalympicsOnJioCinema #JioCinemaSports #Paris2024 #JavelinThrow pic.twitter.com/Pz0S3mJ4JC

— JioHotstar Reality (@HotstarReality) September 2, 2024

Though he couldn’t quite achieve the target of breaching the 75-metre mark that he had set for himself before arriving in Paris, he managed to break the Paralympic record that he had set in Tokyo three years ago. Not once, but twice — in his first two attempts, measuring 69.11m and 70.59m.

It took him just a couple of throws to kill off the contest and virtually seal the gold medal, with Sri Lanka’s Dulan Kodithuwakku and Australia’s Michal Burian, both competing in the F44 category, fighting for silver.

What makes Antil’s journey even more remarkable is the fact that javelin throw wasn’t even his first love. He initially wanted to become a wrestler after getting inspired by Yogeshwar Dutt’s bronze in the 2012 London Olympics before a bike accident at the age of 16 changed his life forever, leading to his introduction to para-sports.

Read | Sumit Antil: The aspiring wrestler who became a para-javelin star after a life-changing incident

Given his natural athletic ability as well as hunger to excel at the highest level of sport, he could very well have been competing at the Olympics alongside the likes of Antim Sehrawat, Vinesh Phogat and other able-bodied grapplers.

If there’s one thing that will bog Antil down, however, it is the perception of para-athletes rather than his physical limitations. There’s a good reason why a world-class talent like Antil might not be celebrated with as much fervour in the cricket-mad nation that is India as Chopra — who in his mid-twenties is already among the country’s greatest athletes of all time.

It’s not just India that’s to blame though; para-athletes in general are not taken as seriously as their able-bodied counterparts, which results in lower income and prize money and para-sports itself being taken less seriously regardless of the discipline.

Star para-athletes such as British wheelchair racer Hannah Cockroft and para-sprinter Jonnie Peacock have pushed for equal prize money. Some nations have even implemented such reforms, with the United States allotting equal pay for Paralympians as their able-bodied counterparts and Belgium announcing equal prize money for medallists in the Olympics and Paralympics.

Antil has done everything he could, and then some more, to deserve the mainstream recognition and fame that his able-bodied counterparts such as Chopra and Manu Bhaker have got in recent years.

Whether he ends up getting the star treatment that an athlete of his stature deserves will ultimately come down to India’s attitude towards para-sport, both at the governmental level as well as in terms of fan support.