2024-07-24 11:23:40
New Delhi: Paris Olympics is going to start from 26th July. Preparations of Indian athletes are in full swing. The Indian team for Paris Olympics was also announced some time ago. Everyone is aware of India’s star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra. But do you know India’s Annu Rani? Who is India’s star javelin thrower athlete just like Neeraj Chopra. This time she is also going to be seen in Paris Olympics. However, she worked very hard to reach this point. Her path to becoming an athlete was not easy at all.Annu Rani has struggled a lot
Annu Rani was born on 28 August 1992 in Bahadurpur village in Meerut. Her father Amarpal was a farmer. Her talent was identified by her brother Upendra, who noticed her upper body strength during a cricket game. He began to train her by asking her to throw sugarcane sticks in an empty field. Annu’s first javelin stick was one she crafted herself from a long piece of bamboo, as she did not have the money to buy a real javelin stick. Annu first started throwing javelin in 2010 at the age of 18. Later her brother started paying for her training, despite her father’s refusal to let girls take up sports. He finally came to support Annu’s talent after she proved herself by breaking a national record in 2014. Now he supports her ambition.
She has brought glory to India
She was the first Indian to reach the final of the women’s javelin throw event at the World Athletics Championships Doha 2019. Annu managed to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics through the world rankings after missing the Olympic championship mark. Her career best effort is 63.24m which helped her win the gold medal at the National Inter-State Athletic Championship, Patiala 2021. Annu Rani created history at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games as she became the first Indian female javelin thrower to win a medal (bronze). She is the first Indian javelin thrower to win a gold medal at the Asian Games 2023 in Hangzhou.
has won many medals
At the 2014 National Inter-State Athletics Championships in Lucknow, Annu Rani won the gold medal with a throw of 58.83m. This broke a 14-year-old national record and qualified for the 2014 Commonwealth Games where she finished eighth. She later won the bronze medal at the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea with a throw of 59.53m. Two years later she broke her own record again with a throw of 60.01m at the National Inter-State Athletics Championships. In March 2019 she broke her own record again with a throw of 62.34m at the National Senior Athletics Championships in Patiala.
Annu Rani won a silver medal at the 23rd Asian Athletics Championships in Qatar on 21 April 2019, thereby qualifying for the World Athletics Championships. With this, she became the first Indian woman javelin thrower to participate in the World Athletics Championships. She won a bronze medal at the IAAF World Challenge Event Golden Spike Ostrava in Ostrava, Czech Republic.