It could be a lonely, hot or cold day. There might be no spectators or hi-tech cameras in sight in the practice arena. But amid the eerie silence, Annu Rani, the javelin thrower from a small village in Uttar Pradesh, chases her dreams. It is a battle with her willpower to make incremental improvements every single day.
Rani currently holds the national record in Women’s Javelin with a best of 63.82m – a mark that she achieved at the Indian Open, in Jamshedpur, in May last year. Her creditworthy performance was less than one metre short of the bronze-medal mark at the Tokyo Olympics. It is also a mere metre less compared to the fifth-best throw for this year, by Līna Muze-Sirma.
With just seven months to go for the Paris Olympics to begin, Rani has unstinting belief that she can touch 65m and perhaps beyond. To succeed in her endeavour, she will again travel to Germany’s Leichtathletik Gemeinschaft Offenburg Centre to train under coach Werner Daniels. “Javelin throw all depends on technique,” Rani told RevSportz. “If you find the right angle and with right movements and good speed, you can go up by 3-4 metres. It can go down by 5-6 metres as well.
“So, I have done 63 metres (63.82 m), I will do a lot of work on my fitness and technique, so it is possible to go up to 68 metres. I was practicing in India, but then I thought I should go outside and practice. The reason is most of the strong competitors in this event are from Europe only. So, it helps to train in Europe.”
The struggle isn’t just restricted to refining skills, but it is also about how an athlete traverses poor form. Just like any other sportsperson, Rani too has had to navigate her way through a few quagmires. This year, across her first seven events, Rani’s performances were poor. Her best throws in those events were as follows – 59.24m, 58.22m, 59.10, 54.76m, 57.05m, 52.24m and 57.74m. It almost seemed as if a little crack in her mental make-up had widened over a period of time.
“Last year, I faced visa problems,” she said. “When the visa was there for the first three months, training was going well with Daniels. After that, what happened was there was a problem with the visa, there was a lot of mental disturbance, because of which I couldn’t train correctly. The workout style is different over here.
“This year, I really struggled. My throws were becoming less and less. I have left my family and country behind and come here. Obviously, the government also spends so much on me. So, all those things were going on in my mind. At that time, I was very depressed, because even in the World Championships, my result wasn’t good. So, I was thinking the Asian Games is the last competition of the year and I have to do well in this one, then it would help me next year.”
Finally, at the right juncture, Rani found her zone and took the coveted gold medal at the Asian Games in Hangzhou with a throw of 62.92 in her fourth attempt. On her way to winning the medal, she overcame Lü Huihui, the silver medalist at the 2015 World Championships, and Liu Shiying, gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics.
“I felt great,” said Rani. “It is my first gold medal at the international level. At the Asian Games, it was very tough as the two Chinese athletes were there. In that, one athlete was an Olympic champion. Another has been a world champion before. In my mind, I was thinking, ‘I’m going to China and competing with those strong ladies in front of their home crowd’. It was a good experience, and I clinched the gold medal. It will motivate me ahead of the Olympics, that everything is possible. It was a memorable event which I will never forget.”
As someone who comes from a village in Bahadurpur, Meerut, Rani also had to grapple with external factors that hindered her progress. One of them was the conservative mindset of those around her. She also had to overcome financial issues. But every obstacle only seemed to harden her single-minded focus to achieve set goals.
“The life of a village girl will be difficult,” she pointed out. “You won’t get facilities, you aren’t allowed to go outside, you’re not allowed to wear a T-shirt. My family background also was similar. We are five brothers-sisters. So, my father’s mindset was I won’t allow my daughters to go outside my home, the outside world is bad, kids will lose their way. From my childhood days, I wanted to go out, do something different. So, I started playing, I used to go out without the knowledge of my family. I didn’t have a Javelin, no shoes, no kit.”
Rani also shared a thought-provoking anecdote which encapsulated the kind of hardships she had faced through the years. “I went to compete in the Asian Games in 2010,” she said. “Our family situation was such that my father couldn’t afford to buy me the kit or shoes. So, when I went to the Asian Games, the shoes were old and broken. I was trying to hide my shoes, so that no one would see my damaged shoes.
“That particular event was a shameful moment for me, because everybody was wearing new clothes, new shoes, but I didn’t have it. When I started playing, I didn’t have enough money to travel with a ticket on the train. I used to sleep below the seat and travel. In the night, some used to keep their feet on my hand, others would hit my leg with their shoes.”
This is about the struggles of an athlete. But what about the viewer, especially with the javelin event catching the attention of legions of Indian fans in the backdrop of Neeraj Chopra’s success? Enough of them are perhaps still grasping the nuances of the sport. Some perhaps would wonder if the event requires only brawn in order to throw the spear as far as possible.
In reality, it is a very technical sport. It demands “a synergy of muscles and joints to throw the long spear”. It also demands that an athlete understands the conditions, and tweaks his or her technique ever so slightly. Rani gives some valuable insights on the hard work that goes on behind the scenes.
“People see Javelin throws and wonder what it is all about, as all they do is keep throwing the javelin,” said Rani. “We work on fitness, we do running for 6-7 km, sprints as well. Throwing a medicine ball 250 times and a little bit of weightlifting. Before throwing, we have to take care of our muscles, joints and body.
“When we start the season, we don’t even touch the javelin for two months. We work on body fitness and jumps, so that when we start throwing the javelin, we don’t get injured, because if there is a little bit of jerk, it puts a lot of impact on the ankle to shoulder to back. For throwers, it is not like we need lean body mass. We need a fit and medium body. So, we concentrate on a healthy diet like ghee, dry fruits, and vegetables.”
So, what does Rani make about the success of her colleague, Chopra? Rani has nothing but praise for his zeal and confidence. She also articulated how Chopra winning all those medals had broken a mental barrier. “We have trained together in Patiala, South Africa, Poland, and the experience was good,” she said. “His technique is good, he trains hard, he has a positive mind. Before Neeraj took the medal at the Olympics, everyone’s mindset was like we can’t compete with those athletes from European countries.
“There are many reasons. Before, we were not getting facilities. Secondly, the body structure of those athletes from foreign countries. For example, in my event, my competitors have a height of 6 feet, and my height is normal. So, everyone used to wonder whether they eat something different, they are given some different kinds of facilities. But now, this kind of mindset has been broken. So, the junior-level players who are coming through, there is that hunger for the medal. Every athlete thinks that if Neeraj can do this from the same environment and by using the same kind of facilities, then we can also do it.”
Rani’s achievements aren’t any less, especially when you consider her tough upbringing. She has indeed come a long way from hurling sugarcane sticks in an empty field and chiseling out her own Javelin from a bamboo stick. She also has a powerful message for young village girls. “I would tell all girls who come from villages that if I can come till here from that kind of a situation, then you can also make a mark.”