Hangzhou, Oct 2: The defending shot put champion Tajinderpal Singh Toor clinched India’s 12th Gold medal at the Asian Games 2023 with a superb throw of 20.36m on Sunday.Tajinder created history as he defended his crown of 2018 and became only the fourth Indian shot putter to win back-to-back Gold medals in shot put at the Games. The Indian star leapfrogged Saudi Arabia’s Mohamed Daouda to win the top prize with his final throw of 20.36m.
Only three Indian shot put athletes have been able to defend their medals at the Asiad. India’s Parduman Singh Brar (1954 and 1958), Joginder Singh (1966 and 1970) and Bahadur Singh Chouhan (1978 and 1982) were the three athletes to win back-to-back Gold medals in the shot put. Tajinder achieves this rare feat after 41 years.
Tajinder started the final with two foul throws, despite one of the throws being near the 20m mark. He got off the mark with a 19.51m throw before going into 20.06 in his next. But he was soon challenged by Saudi Arabia’s Tolo, who touched 20.18m in his fourth attempt. Tajinder fouled his next throw before reaching a monster mark of 20.36m. Meanwhile, Tolo settled for Silver as could not touch 20m in the last attempt. China’s Yang Liu secured a Bronze as he registered a throw of 19.97m.