By Admin 
Outperforming the likes of Neeraj Chopra and Julian Weber in his debut World championship is a nice feeling but India’s Sachin Yadav says it cannot make up for the disappointment of “letting slip” an unlikely bronze after a strong start.
The unheralded Sachin was participating in only his second international event. The Indian’s first-round throw of 86.27m was a personal best, bettering the earlier mark of 85.16m recorded while winning a silver in the Asian championships in May. Curtis Thompson of the USA won the bronze with 86.67m — 40cm better than Sachin’s effort.
“The opening throw went very well. Weather conditions were good, my body was in great shape and execution was near perfect. The moment I saw my javelin land, I thought I can win a medal. I was confident I would pull off at least one throw of 87m,” Sachin said.
“I was competing against the world’s best and naturally your performance gets better. But I could not improve [on] my first throw in the next five attempts despite trying my best. So, I feel I let slip a World championships medal,” the 25-year-old rued.
“Neeraj bhai and I kept talking during the final. After my first throw, he told me we should get two medals. I knew he was dealing with a back problem. I was trying to better my first-round throw, but at the same time I felt sad for Neeraj bhai.”
Sachin’s rise has been meteoric and that too without a qualified coach in his initial years. He was introduced to javelin by his neighbour Sandeep Yadav, also a javelin thrower, who saw the tall youngster playing cricket for fun.
Only last year, he introduced Sachin to well-known coach Naval Singh who has mentored the likes of Shivpal Singh and Sumit Antil and Navdeep Singh.