‘Sweet’ sacrifice and sleepless nights: Sumit Antil on defending Paralympic gold despite back injury
On the advice of his physio, Sumit Antil grudgingly gave up sweets, followed a strict training regimen and shed around 12 kilograms in just two months.
Para javelin thrower Sumit Antil poses for a picture with Gold Medal after winning the men’s Javelin F64 event final match at the Paris Paralympics 2024, in Paris on Monday (September 2, 2024)
| Photo Credit: ANI
A day ahead of the defence of his gold medal in the men’s javelin F64 category, sleep evaded Sumit Antil. Nothing out of the ordinary for the champion thrower.
“When people have expectations, the responsibilities on you increase. I wanted to give my best. The pressure is quite internal to keep getting better and the fear is about not being able to do that well,” he said a day after winning a second Paralympic gold.
That gold came with him breaking the Paralympic record twice. He began with a massive 69.11m that broke his own mark of 68.55m set in Tokyo. He then went one better with a 70.59m throw in his second attempt.
The fans in Paris knew him and cheered him on at the start of his run-up. But the real anxiety for the 26-year-old was the condition of his back.
“I didn’t have an injury before Tokyo. A back issue has been plaguing my performances for the past few months. It’ll get alright, it just needs some rest but I was participating in back-to-back events and didn’t get time to give my back the rest it needed.
“When you have an injury, you lose support of those muscles in your throw. That load moves to some other muscle and it disturbs your technique. I felt that pain (in my back) after my third throw last night.”
Sumit’s blocking leg is the one with the artificial limb, which makes life a few levels harder for him as an athlete.
“My landing leg is the one with the artificial lamb and it’s difficult to balance on it sometimes because only the heel grabs the ground and only two spike nails stick into the ground. It is difficult to balance the full body on two nails.”
With the injury working on his mind, it was imperative for Sumit to keep things as simple as possible with the javelin in hand and the advice he got from Neeraj Chopra before his campaign stressed on just that.
With the major event of the year out of the way, Sumit now has a few clear priorities — Number one: Fix his back and make up for time away from family by spending some time with his folks.
“My team and I view the event calendar in small portions. Immediately on my priority list is the World Championship next year. So the idea will be to perfect my body and technique as much as possible by then and give my best there.”
There’s also the dangling carrot of a three-peat at the Los Angeles Paralympics in 2028 and 26-year-old Sumit can fancy his chances to register a memorable feat to his name in America.
“As far as LA 2028 is concerned, I am 26 now. By then I’ll be 30. In our game, the peak age is around 31-32. Will be quite great to top the podium there too. The efforts will certainly be in that direction.”
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