Sushil Yadav was just 18 when family commitments meant he had to give up a fledgling career as a hammer thrower after getting married. His passion for the sport never died, though, and he decided to train his children in the same event. On Wednesday, a proud Sushil was watching trackside at the Kalinga Stadium as his 18-year-old daughter Anushka wrote her name in the history books, smashing the national record in the women’s hammer throw.

Anushka broke the nine-year-old mark of 65.25m held by Sarita Singh twice in the course of the Inter-State National Championships. She threw 65.64m in her second attempt and then, just to prove that throw was not a fluke, improved it to 67.02m in her final throw of the competition.

At just a shade under 18 years and two months old, Anushka is the youngest national record holder in Indian track and field competition. And by virtue of meeting the Athletics Federation of India’s qualification standard of 61.72m for the Asian Games, she is likely to be the youngest in the contingent that is travelling to Nagoya in a couple of months’ time.

It was a nerveless performance but one that did not come out of nowhere. As a 17-year-old, she had thrown 62.89m to win gold at last year’s National Games.

The hammer throw might not be one of the more well-known track and field events in India but growing up in the village of Balena in western Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat district, it was not a surprise that Anushka found her way to the throwing ring.

HAMMER THROW VILLAGE

“In our area, this event is really popular. There is an athletics ground at the Sri Krishna Inter College in our village where a lot of international and national athletes have trained. Girls train here as well, including Tanya Choudhary, who placed second at the Inter-State Championships behind Anushka,” says Sushil.

He, too, had been a hammer thrower before the untimely death of his younger brother meant he was married off early and expected to support his household by working in the family fields. “I really enjoyed the hammer throw but I never got the chance to compete myself.

Although I was working, I still wanted my children to become athletes,” he says. At first, Sushil thought his son, the youngest of his four children, would become a thrower. His two elder daughters were more interested in studies while Anushka initially trained as a sprinter.

“Dad used to take my brother to train as a hammer thrower. But I insisted I wanted to be a hammer thrower as well and so he started to take me there,” she says.

It was not obvious that Anushka would stick to the event. While running could be picked up easily, the hammer throw, with its heavy ball and chain and its high-speed circular movement, is not instinctive. “It takes time to learn the technique.

You have to do drills for nearly a year before you can even lift the hammer. And after, even if everything goes smoothly, it takes a year to throw properly. Slowly, you start increasing the weight of the hammer. You start out with a 1kg hammer and step by step you increase the weight you are throwing,” he says.

FARM GIRL

It soon became clear to Sushil that Anushka was an instinctive thrower. “I saw her body activity and how quickly she picked up the drills and I knew she had the potential to be a really good thrower,” he says.

Potential soon translated to performances. In 2024, as a 16-year-old, Anushka won gold at the U-20 Federation Cup with a throw of 56.63m. That same year, she went to her first Asian Junior Championships, where she finished sixth. Last year, though, she burst into the national reckoning when she stunned the senior field to win gold at the National Games in Dehradun with a new meet record and personal best of 62.89m.

As she progressed, it was not just Sushil who understood his daughter was special. “She’s not reached this level just because I have been coaching her. She has been supported by many different people. There are two senior throwers in the academy, Chirag Yadav and Gagan Yadav, who coach her along with me,” he says.

The three split up coaching duties. “Kisaan aadmi hoon. Subah ko main khet me kaam karta hoon. I’m a farmer and I have to work the fields in the morning. In the morning, Anushka trains with Chirag and Gagan coach and in the evening, when I’m finished with my farm work, I take care of the second training session,” he says.

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It is not just Sushil who works the fields. Anushka helps out as well. In March this year, that almost cost her seriously. “I was helping out in the sowing season and I was trying to connect the tiller to the tractor to prepare the field for sowing. While I was doing this, my brother, who was in the tractor, reversed. My foot got stuck in the machinery and I suffered a tear to the ligaments in my right knee,” she says.

It would take several weeks for the injury to start to heal. Although the delay meant that Anushka was not at her best leading up to the Inter-State Championships, her father believed she was getting close to her best.

“She finished second at the Junior Federation Cup with 58.02m and then threw 63m at the State Championships, so I knew that as her knee was recovering, she was throwing further. I knew the moment her knee was in the right place, she would get a really big throw,” he says.

If the record throw at the Inter-States did not come as a surprise, Sushil is confident Anushka can throw even further. Although, at 5 foot 7 inches and just under 70kg, she is one of the smaller women’s hammer throwers around, Sushil says her technique makes up for her physical limitation.

“Hammer throw isn’t purely a game of power. This is a game of technique and right now Anushka’s technique is very strong. She’s made a throw of 71m in training and if her technique goes correctly, she can do that again,” he says.

There is no better place for that to happen than at the Asian Games in September. Considering the bronze medal at last year’s Asian Championships was won with a throw of 64.25m, anything close to her best could well place Anushka on the podium.

But Anushka’s goal is bigger. “I want to win the gold medal at the Asian Games and I want to throw 70m in a competition. Right now, everyone knows the javelin but very few people know about the hammer throw. I want people to know about the hammer throw the same way,” she says.

Published on Jun 24, 2026