Blame it on injuries, lack of practice for missing gold at Under-20 World Championships, say Indian athletes

Indian athletes returned with three individual medals at the World Athletics Under-20 Championships last week but for the medalists, it was more a case of gold lost than silver or bronze won.

Ashish Yadav, who became only the second Indian javelin thrower to win a medal with his 74.09m throw for silver, blamed lack of practice and injury for his below-par performance.

“My throwing on ground had completely stopped before the competition. I was in rehab, recovering from a knee and hamstring injury and went straight into competition and could not do as well as I had hoped,” Ashish said during a media interaction here on Wednesday.

While even matching his personal best of 79m would have still kept him in second spot, Ashish is now hoping to become the latest addition to the group of 80m plus throwers in the country.

“This was only my second international competition and the previous one, the Asian Under-20 Championships (in May) was disappointing so a medal here is satisfying,” he added. Ashish had failed to cross 70m and placed fifth then.

Basant Meghwal, who missed out on gold in high jump on countback, was equally disappointed. Meghwal finished behind Younes Ayachi of Algeria, having cleared 2.21m in his second attempt.

“I was thinking about gold only but it didn’t happen. I am happy I matched my personal best but if I had done so in my first attempt, I could have got gold. I even tried going for 2.24m but the previous attempt took a lot of effort and my ankle had started paining,” he explained.

Shahnavaz Khan, who won bronze in long jump and has already qualified for the Asian Games, rued the fact that he started cramping after his third jump, which was also his best attempt at 7.84m. “My best normally is in the last three jumps only but I was unable to push harder because of cramps. But I am confident of recovering well in time for Asian Games,” he insisted.