2025 national champion in hammer throw, Tanya Chaudhary, on Thursday shattered the national record in the event with a 68.35m throw, going past Anushka Yadav’s 67.02m throw, which the latter had registered during the National Inter-State Senior Championships in Bhubaneswar in June.
Tanya’s effort was registered at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi on Thursday, at the Indian Athletics Series final. Anushka finished second with a 66.34m throw.
Both Tanya and Anushka are part of India’s Asian Games team, making the former’s record-breaking performance all the more significant with the Games just under two weeks away.
Tanya won Rs 1 lakh for winning the event, while Anushka took home Rs 50,000.
The new national record marks a significant improvement
on Tanya’s performance at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, where she finished seventh with a throw of 60.5m.
The Athletics Federation of India had named a 77-member athletics team, comprising 34 men and 43 women, for the 20th Asian Games in Japan. The contingent has since been expanded to 79 athletes.
In the 24-year-history of the hammer throw being introduced at the Asian Games, India has just one medal in the women’s event. Manju Bala won bronze at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games with a 60.47m throw.
At the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, China bagged gold and silver in the discipline, with South Korea winning bronze. The gold medal-winning throw was 71.53m by Wang Zheng.
But Zheng isn’t part of China’s 2026 Asian Games team. China announced its 815-member team for the Aichi-Nagoya Games on Friday, but her name was missing from the official delegation list.
In Zheng’s absence, Zhao Jie, who won silver behind the former in Hangzhou, could emerge as China’s leading contender in the women’s hammer throw. Zhao has since gone past Zheng’s Asian record, registering a throw of 78.22m in April 2026.
Zhao Jie is also the Paris Olympics bronze medallist.
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