25-year-old Sumit Antil broke the paralympic world record in men’s javelin throw F64 category, with a massive throw of 73.29m at the Hangzhou Olympics Sports Centre on Wednesday.

In an interview with The Indian Express, Antil's mother Nirmala Devi joyfully shared, “Jab bhi main puchu ki mere liye kya layega videsh se, hamesha kahega ki medal hi launga. (Whenever I ask him what will you bring for me from abroad, he always says I will certainly get you the medal). He is very particular about his world records and plans to make a marking wall at our new home. Perhaps we have to wait for the Paris Olympics to get the finishing touch.”

Antil, the youngest of the four children, lost his father Ram Kumar who was an Indian Air Force soldier to cancer in 2004. Hailing from Haryana, Antil wanted to become a wrestler and took part in the local dangals at his village. He also trained at the SAI Centre in Sonepat.

Unfortunately on January 5, 2015, he suffered a motorbike accident on the Sonepat-Dewra road and the doctors of the Base hospital where he was taken to in Delhi Cantt, took the decision to amputate his left leg. He had to stay at the hospital for 53 days.

"Par hamesha hamein kehta raha ki himmat rakho (But he would always tell us to keep faith). He was very good in studies too and was going to his tuition classes when the accident happened. Sometimes he would tell us to bring his books to the hospital to make him feel good. If he would have stopped believing at that time, all these medals and glory would not have come,” said Devi.

A few days after his release from the hospital, Antil made went to Pune and got a prosthetic leg. He met with para athlete Ram Kumar and decided to train under Para Asian Games medallist Virender Dhankar and later under Dronacharya awardee coach Naval Singh.

Despite advices from others at the Nehru Stadium in Delhi, to go for other disciplines he was interested only in Javelin. Naval said that Antil strength is his adaptability. He would do all the chores and even cooked for himself when he shared room with another athelete while he trained under Naval. "It took a lot of time for him to adjust to the prosthetic leg and I would make him throw for a distance of 25-30 m initially. He would walk and not run as the prosthetic leg would run against his knee and blood would ooze out with multiple attempts. So he also learnt making throws while sitting at the hammer throw net. Wrestling has made his upper body muscles very strong and it’s still an advantage for him,” said Naval to The Indian Express.

Within a span of four years, Antil made a new world record in the F64 category with a throw of 61.32m at the Paris Grand Prix in 2019. He broke his own record the same year with a throw of 62.88m in the worlds in Dubai. In 2020, Antil had competed against Neeraj Chopra in the Indian Grand Prix and had finished seventh and qualified for the Tokyo Paralympics. 

According to Singh, Antil trained alongside Neeraj on 2018 in Finland with the invitation from 1988 Olympic gold medallist Tapio Korjus which helped his mentality to approach the marks like 65m, 70m or 75 m. "Right from the start, his action has been like German Johannes Vetter and he used the fall technique but then he suffered elbow injuries. So we made some changes in his technique and the upper and arms and shoulders generate the jerk for him," said  Singh.

At Tokyo Paralympics, Antil clinched gold with a world record throw of 68.55m, bettering the record three times in the final. Last year, Antil had made a new world record throw of 68.62 m at Indian Open. He finally breached the 70m mark with a throw of 70.83 m at the worlds in Paris this year. On Wednesday, Antil went past the 70m mark twice and won the gold medal and made a new world record. He would have been eighth in the Asian Games final earlier this month in Hangzhou where Chopra won the gold with a throw of 88.88m.

Singh said that the challenge for Antil is to adjust to the new prosthetic leg whenever he gets it after multiple tournaments as it takes some time to for the knee to adjust and sometimes it bleeds. Singh hopes that Antil will soon cross the 75 m mark and eventually the 80m.

Antil had married Sheetal last year and chose to build a new home in the village Khewra near Sonepat. The family decided to make a huge hall to host functions for the villagers to attend. “Sumit always says that our village is the most precious thing to our family. Hence he got the new house made here. Like always, he will ask for desi ghee food on his return,” said his proud mother Devi.