Annu Rani became the first Indian female javelin thrower to win a medal at the Commonwealth Games on the penultimate day on Sunday.

Rani sent the spear to a distance of 60m in her fourth attempt to win a bronze medal for the country.

Also read: CWG: India records historic 1-2 finish in men’s triple jump

World champion Kelsey-Lee Barber of Australia stole the gold with a final round throw of 64.43m from compatriot Mackenzie Little (64.27m), who was leading at the end of the penultimate round.

Before Rani, Kashinath Naik and Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra had won a bronze and a gold in men’s javelin throw in the 2010 and 2018 editions respectively.

Also read: Indian boxer Nitu Ghanghas wins gold in women’s minimum weight

Annu Rani is a woman javelin thrower Uttar Pradesh, India. At the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, she became the first Indian to advance to the women’s javelin throw finals. After falling short of the Olympic Qualification threshold, Annu qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics based on international rankings. Her best performance to date is 63.24m, which she used to win the gold medal at the Patiala 2021 National Interstate Athletic Championship.

Also Read | CWG 2022: India women’s team beat NZ 2-1 in hockey shootout, win bronze

On August 28, 1992, Annu Rani was born in the Uttar Pradesh village of Bahadurpur to a farming family. Her brother Upendra recognised her talent after noticing her upper body power while watching a cricket match. He asked her to throw sugarcane sticks in a barren field as he started to train her. Because she couldn’t afford one, Annu made her own first javelin stick out of a lengthy piece of bamboo. When she was 18 years old, she was the first to take up the sport of javelin throw. Despite her father’s opposition to girls participating in sports, her brother started to pay for her training. After she shown her skill by breaking the national record in 2014, he eventually changed his mind and is now a supporter of Annu’s aspirations.

Also Read | Commonwealth Games 22, Day 10: Indians in the fray

Rani won the gold medal in the 2014 National Inter-State Athletics Championship in Lucknow with a throw of 58.83 metres, shattering the previous national record by 14 years. She also qualified for the 2014 Commonwealth Games, where she placed eighth. She earned the bronze medal in the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, later that same year with a throw of 59.53 metres. At the National Inter-state Athletics Championship two years later, she once more smashed her personal record with a throw of 60.01 metres. She once more beat her own record in March 2019 at the National Senior Athletics Championships in Patiala, Punjab, with a throw of 62.34 metres.

Rani became the first Indian woman javelin thrower to compete in the World Athletics Championship on April 21, 2019, when she won the silver medal at the 23rd Asian Athletics Championships in Qatar. At the IAAF World Challenge competition Golden Spike Ostrava in Ostrava, Czech Republic, she took home the bronze medal.

In 2020, she received the Athletics Sportstar Aces Sportswoman of the Year Award. At the 59th National Open Athletics Championship, she took home the gold medal in the women’s javelin throw competition. Kashinath Naik was Annu Rani’s first coach, while Baljeet Singh is her current coach.