“Upar wale ki marzi thi ki thoda sangarsh se yeh record mile (It was God’s will that I earn this world record after a bit of struggle),” Sumit Antil says of his latest conquest.
The reigning world para champion produced an unprecedented 74.82m throw in the men’s javelin throw F64 final at the eighth Indian Open International Para Athletics Championships in Bengaluru last week. For the 27-year-old Haryana native, the last three years have been the longest he has gone without breaking his own world mark. Antil had achieved the feat a whopping nine times between 2019 and 2023.
In an Olympic cycle where he has set eyes on defending his Asian Games crown as well as winning his fourth world title and third Paralympic title, Antil sees the new world record as rediscovering old form.
“Yeh aap search kar lena kitni bar world record toda hai (This, you can search how many times I have broken the world record). But for the last three years, I could not do my best. At the World Para Athletics Championships in New Delhi, conditions were perfect to break the world record but things didn’t work out.
Sumit Antil with coach Vipin Kasana and his team after the new world throw of 74.82m at Bengaluru last week. Instagram
“I was not nervous but neck strain, fever and other things in different competitions meant that I could not get past the world record. I don’t think about the mark or any particular number but all the talk in my mind is to push myself to the best I can throw and finally, I could find my old rhythm back,” shares Antil while speaking with The Indian Express.
A tough phase and a restart
Since making the previous world record throw of 73.29m at Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023, Antil has defended his Paralympic title in Paris with a Games-record throw of 70.59m and won his third Para Worlds title in Delhi with a championship record throw of 71.37m. The past edition of the Para Worlds (WPA), in Kobe in 2024, had seen him set the then world record of 70.83m before he set the new milestone in Hangzhou.
Both the titles had come with Antil fighting a back niggle and it meant that he had to cut down on competitions. After the Paris Paralympics, the decorated athlete returned in May 2025 at the Nottwil WPA Grand Prix in Switzerland and would record his career’s second-best throw of 72.35m. It was followed by competing in Atleticageneve, a world continental bronze competition for able-bodied athletes in Geneva, where he threw 68.58m.
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Before he won the worlds’ title in Delhi, Antil once again crossed the 72m mark with a throw of 72.25m in the Indian Open. Antil was aided by his trainer Manoj last year and talks about a phase which helped him rediscover himself.
“In the 2023 and 2024 seasons, my focus was to avoid injury and even though the world records would come, I knew there was an apprehension in my mind about flaring up the back niggle. It meant that sometimes my posture would get unstable at the time of attack, with the body going a bit left or right. So I worked on my toe strength and also underwent hypertrophy training sessions,” remembers Antil.
While he was without a coach for a major part of 2025, this year Antil has trained under Vipin Kasana, a former national champion and now Indian para athletics team coach. Prior to Bengaluru, Antil had emerged triumphant at Dubai Grand Prix with a throw of 68.26m in February, before he claimed victory in the New Delhi Grand Prix with a 69.25m effort.
Kasana, who had a personal best throw of 82.51m and competed against double Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra initially in his career, shares how the duo went back to basics with the first focus on Antil losing some weight and adding more muscle strength.
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“My first talk with Sumit was about getting the throwing rhythm back and improving his fitness. One has to maintain maximum speed in the run-up and make sure that there is no break between that. When Sumit would withdraw the javelin and pull it towards the side and cross, the speed was going a bit down.
“So we worked on that aspect of his throwing. It was tough initially, as the biggest hurdle is muscle memory. We have seen throwers like Neeraj bhai too facing problems like that. In Sumit’s case, every practice session means he bleeds from the left leg as the amputation area has still not healed properly. As coach, I have to understand that too but Sumit has been so strong that he has never complained about it ever,” says Kasana.
The 75m push
Across the 24 categories in javelin throw in the para category, no para athlete in the world has thrown more than 75m. Prior to last week, Great Britain’s Daneil Pembroke’s world record throw of 74.49m in the men’s F13 category at the Paris Paralympics was the farthest any para athlete has thrown the javelin.
Antil knows that he missed the 75m mark by a few centimetres in Bengaluru but believes that setting the world-leading mark beyond 75m too is possible. “The focus was on the speed at the runway and seeing that it does not break in between. While I lost close to 6-7 kilograms, I focussed on speed as well as some explosive work. We also worked on fine-tuning the attack in the run-up on the runway crossing.
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Sumit Antil during a training session. Instagram
“Coach Kasana also understands that I am more of a power thrower than a technical one, so the focus has been on power in the last phase. I believe even 77-78m throw is possible soon,” says the para javelin throw superstar.
Kasana adds how the world record holder can do better in the coming months with the Asian Para Games in Japan, followed by next year’s Worlds in Uzbekistan and then the Los Angeles Paralympics.
“While his speed has been coming, Sumit used to hold a little bit during what we call ‘impulsive step’, the penultimate step before he lands. It has been corrected close to 70 percent and we need to work more in that regard and the results will show in the coming months for sure,” the coach states.
As for Antil, the world record has meant that there will be another imprint at his Sonepat home, where he has made all the world record marks as a wall feature. “When I broke the world record last week, Neeraj bhai also messaged me. During last year’s world championships too, he discussed some things in my technique and it has helped me. My son Meet is growing each day and I know he will soon understand all these world records (laughs),” signs off Antil.
