Rinku, 26, wins javelin gold with Championship Record at Para Athletics Worlds, targets WR next
Rinku Hooda didn’t like his final throw of the evening. His throw was well over the white arc that marked the 60m distance, but he didn’t want the mark—whatever it was—to sully his record for the day and stepped over the foul line.
He could afford to be choosy. Just a few minutes earlier, with his very first throw of 63.81m in the F46 category of the men’s javelin throw competition at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the 26-year-old had erased a decade-old Championship Record. Eventually, he launched a massive 66.37m throw to register a Personal Best.
That throw was more than enough for Hooda to claim his first world title. His competition complete, Rinku stood on the javelin throw runway one more time and pointed down at the ground as if to say that is where he belonged. Then he wrapped himself up in the Indian flag while the crowd at the JLN Stadium, a significant number of whom were from Rinku’s village of Dhamar in Haryana’s Rohtak district roared in approval.
He had led the competition from the very first throw, and his gold medal wasn’t really threatened – second place went to two-time Paralympic medallist Sundar Gujjar with 64.76m.
Yet later, Rinku would make light of his win. Conditions in Delhi have been unseasonably sweltering, but he had no complaints. “I’ve had the chance to train here a couple of sessions before the World Championships. I’ve won, so I can’t say there was any problem with the conditions. I started with good warm-up throws and then it kept going well. It was just my day,” he’d say.
For those who have followed his career, there was little doubt that Rinku belonged at this very elite level. Yet he’s not always had days like Monday, when things have gone the right way.
In the run-up to the World Championships in New Delhi, Rinku knew he was one of the frontrunners for the title, but he also knew how little that meant. “I’m trying my best to focus on my training routine. It’s not helpful to think about things like medals. It’s hard not to think about medals, especially for someone like me, because I feel I missed out on one at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris,” he says.
While India para athletes had one of their best competitions in Paris, Hooda personally had one to forget. He still doesn’t know what happened. “I won gold with a throw of 66.26m at the Tunisia Grand Prix in 2023, and after that I threw 67.01m at the Para Asia Games in 2023 in Hangzhou, where I won a silver. I also won a silver at the 2023 World Championships in Paris with a throw of 65.01m. In all, I had thrown over 65m in four separate competitions before I competed at the Paralympics, but on the day I really wanted to perform in Paris, I only got a throw of 61m. Para sports have indeed grown a lot in the country, and that is sometimes what makes it harder when I was left out of it! When the country did so well at the Paris Paralympics, it felt worse when I came back without a medal,” he had told Sportstar before the World Championships.
His result was even more disappointing because he had gone to his second Paralympics thinking he would get his first medal – he had competed in his first Paralympics in 2016 in Rio as the youngest Indian in the contingent and had finished fifth over there.
Failure at Paris might have been disappointing, but Hooda says that it has kept him motivated. “I’m going to keep pushing myself until the 2028 Paralympic Games in Los Angeles. I have to have a big performance there. I have a lot of thoughts going on in my mind that will only be settled if I medal at Los Angeles,” he had told Sportstar.
Gold at the New Delhi World Championships is a stepping stone towards that ultimate goal, but that wasn’t always the case. “It wasn’t always a Paralympic medal that motivated me,” Rinku said. “Even before I had any idea of the Paralympics, I was always interested in sports. I was always running around playing something or the other all the time,” he says.
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Hooda barely has any recollection of how he suffered the injury that saw his left arm amputated at his shoulder. “I was only three years old when it happened, and I only have a tiny memory of it. I had run off to play in the fields when I fell asleep just behind the flywheel of a tractor. I never realised when the blades started turning and had my arm cut very deeply in three different places,” he says.
Rinku’s elder brother Anuj, who also coaches him says his lack of memory of his accident is one of his greatest strengths. “He doesn’t know what life was like before his injury. For him, he’s always only lived with one arm,” he says.
Indeed, Rinku would always be found running around and playing. Initially, it was volleyball and cricket, and then when he was 11, athletics came calling. “I was 11 years old when I found out about para athletics from a boy in my village who would also go out and train. He told me I was well-built and I could have a future. In 2012, I went to Panchkula in Haryana to see a state para athletics competition, and decided to start training a few months later,” he says.
He remembers the date he went to train for the first time, “January 15, 2013,” he says. The date is clearly one of the most significant of his life, but he could hardly have known then. “I didn’t really think about how far I would go when I started para athletics. I was just happy that I found a way to continue to play sports. I had no plan of going to the Paralympics or World Championships,” he says.
“I’ve been lucky that people around me have always supported me. When the villagers used to see me going on the 11 km journey to train in Rohtak’s Rajeev Gandhi stadium, they’d say I was working so hard. They’d say that it was in God’s hands how far I got. My family has always supported me. If I needed money, they’d give that to me as well,” he says.
His father sponsored his travel—1.5 lakh rupees, he recalls—to his first competition in Dubai in 2015, and when a clerical error resulted in his being unable to compete, he once again raised money to send him to a second competition in Switzerland. It was at that competition that saw Rinku qualify for the Rio Paralympics.
He remembers being overawed by his first appearance. “I didn’t even hear when they called my name to throw. It was one of my competitors who nudged me when I had about 20 seconds left and I started to throw,” he recalls.
He’s gained more experience since then. He’s competed at the biggest stage many times, too. People now come to him for advice. “When people tell their children to be as accomplished as I, I tell them to keep working hard. Don’t give up and leave the rest to God.”
That’s what he’d told himself after the Paris Games and then before the World Championships in New Delhi. He’s well on the path to redemption but he’s leaving the details to the almighty. So when Rinku is asked about missing out on the world record (68.60m currently held by Sundar Singh Gujar), he doesn’t take the bait. ““One day I will make a world record. God has given me a personal record. I also have a world title. I’m very thankful for that,” he says.
Published on Sep 29, 2025