Meet Virendra Yadav: Farmer's son and emerging javelin star sets new national record at National Junior Athletics Championships

The boy from Bihar created a new NR with a best effort of 69.45m in U16 men’s javelin throw.

The Indian javelin throw has been on a steady rise in past of last few years. Neeraj Chopra with his heroics at the Tokyo Olympics inspired many youngsters to take up the sport at a very young age. The results are quite evident in the junior meets where athletes have kept breaking records consistently, mainly in javelin throw.

On the final day of the National Junior Athletics Championships 2023, Virendra Yadav from Bihar broke the junior national record with a best effort of 69.45m in U-16 men’s javelin throw. He was closely followed by Himanshu from Haryana who had started the proceedings by registering a then national record mark at 68.10m. However, he couldn’t breach the mark set by Virendra, thereby settling for silver.

Virendra’s coach Ashutosh was overwhelmed by his ward’s performance and said, “I’m extremely happy with Virendra’s gold medal performance as he went on to create new national record. I would take a moment to thank the Bihar government who have supported him in his short career.

“Prior to the tournament I had a hope that Virendra would break the national record and also go onto register 72m or 73m.”

Ashutosh Kumar Singh was earlier a national champion in javelin throw and with the sports quota secured a government job. “I am under deputation in ‘khel vihar’ and our job is to find the best javelin throwers from across Bihar. With our scouting and experimentation going well, I was given the key responsibility to train javelin throwers.”

Virendra from Jamui district in Bihar was scouted by the coach while playing cricket. “I saw him bowling pretty well and he had a good throwing arm. He had good speed and jerk and asked him to try Javelin once. I had guaranteed him full support at the start and after initial training he wanted to take up the sport.”

“He has a elder brother – Sudama Kumar Yadav who is also my student and was an excellent athlete. However due to ligament tear he did not participate much but is training pretty well.”

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Virendra Kumar was selected by Reliance Foundation for training for a period of three months. When they approached me, I immediately sent him there as he will get world class training and facility. He hasn’t completed three months there but has shown good improvement in technique.

“My wish is to see many corporates come forward and support athletes who come from poor background. Virendra’s father is a farmer, and his family cannot afford much in his training and infra. Like him there are many athletes who have talent but cannot afford to train in good facilities. So, if companies come forward and help then we can see many more talents emerging.

Apart from Virendra, Kishu Singh from Bihar too registered a new meet record with a best mark of 60.56m in kids javelin throw (U-14). Close to four athletes went above the previous meet record set at 62.47m.