Nagoya (Japan), Oct 20 — Indian javelin thrower Rinku Hooda clinched the men’s F46 gold medal at the Asian Para Games in Nagoya on Monday, producing a final-attempt throw of 65.11m to beat compatriot Ajeet Singh by nine centimetres.
The 27-year-old from Dhamar, Haryana, secured the title despite battling a shoulder injury during preparations and struggling emotionally following his mother’s death on August 8. Speaking after his victory, Hooda revealed the extent of his grief, the challenges of returning to training, and his determination to remain competitive. “There has never been a day when I haven’t cried. From morning to evening. Every time, I cry once or twice a day. I miss her. But I never thought that this would happen to me,” Hooda told IANS in an exclusive interaction.
Hooda said the loss had affected him deeply, making it difficult to concentrate on training even as he continued competing and winning medals.
“You can’t train, to be honest. I am telling the truth. You can say anything from the outside. But as long as you are a bit of a family man, you don’t say that whatever has happened is fine. But still, the heart doesn’t agree from the inside. I still win medals. I don’t feel that I have won a medal. I have been like this from the inside since my mother passed away. There has never been a day when I haven’t cried. From morning to evening. Every time, I cry once or twice a day. I miss her. But I never thought that this would happen to me,” he expressed.
Recalling the circumstances surrounding his mother’s death, Hooda described a moment that continues to haunt him. He said his mother had been resting with her head on his hand before he left briefly to undergo a doping test.
“Everyone has to go one day. I also have to go one day. Everyone has to. But it just feels like when it’s time to see the happiness, then that person leaves you. The day my mother passed away, she was sleeping on my hand till 3:10 pm. When I went to sleep, my brother Anuj came. He told me to go to sleep and said he’ll take care of her. My mother’s oxygen was continuously on. As soon as I fell asleep, the doping team came to take my test. I told my mother that I would be back in 10 minutes after giving the sample. I went to the adjacent house, our second house. I’ll remember those 10 minutes throughout my life; the shock that I felt, I still feel that shock,” an emotional Hooda, still in grief, said.
Hooda resumed training on August 19 but found it difficult to return to his routine. His father encouraged him to continue working towards his sporting ambitions, although a subsequent shoulder injury created another obstacle.
“I have been going through a disturbance for the last two and a half months. Since August 8. When I started training, I didn’t feel like training. My father told me that it doesn’t matter. Whatever happened, happened. But you should focus on yourself. If you don’t pay attention, your mother’s soul will not rest in peace. So I started looking at the same thing.
“As soon as I started, I had a pain in my shoulder in the next session. So I did an MRI. In that MRI, I found out that it was a Grade 1 tear. We still had a lot of time to rehab it. So my doctor, Swapnil, Lakshya, my strength and condition coach, and I all met and talked for two or three hours. We discussed what to do next. We also missed four or five sessions. And the day we started, we started with taping. And I did the taping yesterday as well. Because we couldn’t take the risk,” he stated.
The injury required him to modify his preparation, with the athlete and his support team carefully managing his workload before travelling for the competition. Hooda explained that his throws had remained consistent before the injury, but the shoulder discomfort made a return to his previous distances uncertain.
“Before the injury, we had a session before my mother’s death on August 8. We had a session after that. We had a session for 62, 61, just like normal. So, after that, when there was pain in the shoulder, we didn’t think that the throw would reach 64 or 65. But we missed the session. We missed three or four sessions. My shoulder was tapped before the session, and we practised. We had a session on the 9th, on Friday, before the Asian Games. So, we had an all-out throw session on our ground and had a session of 61, 62 metres,” Hooda said.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding his fitness, Hooda entered the competition determined to give himself the best possible chance of winning. His team had planned to secure a strong mark early because they were unsure how his shoulder would hold up across all six attempts.
“I wanted to take my bets out on the first throw itself. My injury was completely cured, so I wanted to get my best throws in the initial two attempts. We had made a plan beforehand. That if we do it, we will do it in the first or second throw because we didn’t know whether we’d manage to get to the sixth attempt or not. So this was the plan. But I didn’t talk to Ajeet much before the throws. We were on the ground, we greeted each other and said, let’s do it,” Hooda recalled.
The contest ultimately came down to the final round. Ajeet registered 65.02m in his fourth attempt, leaving Hooda needing a bigger throw to move into the lead. The Haryana athlete responded with 65.11m on his last attempt, taking the gold in a competition where Indonesia's R.Saktyono finished third with 55.30m.
Hooda said he never abandoned the belief that he could win, pointing to a pattern of producing his best throws late in major competitions.
“No, I didn’t lose that hope. I never lose hope. I never lose hope. I always try to put all my energy into the last throw. I did the same thing in the last Asian Games. In the 2022 Asian Games, I threw the last throw of 67 metres. And the same thing happened in the World Championships in Paris. So, I don’t know whether it’s my body that takes time to warm up or what it is, but my best throws come on the last attempt in most of the competitions,” he said.
Beyond his own performance, Hooda highlighted the need for more financial and institutional assistance for younger athletes entering para-sports. While acknowledging the support available to established competitors, he said newcomers needed greater backing to build sustainable careers.
“The senior players have sponsorships and jobs. There is a backup in every way. But the junior players who are playing for the first time, they need more support. They need more sponsorships and help from TOPS. The federation is always backing them; there’s no doubt about it. But our new junior players should be supported more.”
Hooda plans to take a break of one or two months before resuming his preparations. Although he has not set an immediate performance target following his Asian Para Games triumph, he remains focused on the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic cycle.
“There is no target right now as such. We will rest for a month or two. Our main focus is one thing that we want to achieve - and that is the Olympics. Whatever competition there is, we want to play as we did in this game. But our plan will always be for the LA 2028 Olympics. Whether we do it or not, that will always be the main focus,” he concluded.