After nearly 12 years, India are well placed to have a representation in hammer throw at Asian Games. Damneet Singh, 26, attained the qualification mark set by Athletics Federation of India (AFI) with a personal best 70.64m at the India Open Throws last month in Patiala.

Singh, who hails from Barnala in Punjab, missed out on the national record held by Neeraj Kumar by a mere 9cm. Yet, he remains unfazed.

“I’m not consciously running behind the national record,” Singh told Read on the sidelines of the Indian Athletics Series in Delhi last week.

“I, instead, want to breach the qualification mark for the Commonwealth Games, which is at 73.09m,” he added.

For someone so close to the national record in a discipline still largely alien to majority of the country, Singh’s first introduction to sports was as a sprinter.

How it all started?

He hails from a family deeply rooted in sports culture. His father and brother were both pole vaulters, and even today, whenever the family meets, they discuss developments in different track and field disciplines.

It was his father who first learned about the hammer throw from a friend and introduced him to the event, wanting different events for both sons.

“In 2013, I first picked up the hammer throw after my father introduced me to it,” revealed Singh.

Earlier, he would practise sprinting whenever he accompanied his father to the stadium, but once he took up hammer throw, everything fell into place.

“I started enjoying hammer throw as you don’t have to run unlike sprint,” he said with a chuckle. “I decided to seriously pursue after I won a medal in my first nationals in 2014.”

Singh’s breakthrough moment came when he became the first Indian to win a medal at the IAAF World U18 Championships, bagging a silver with an impressive throw of 74.20m (5kg hammer) in Kenya in 2017.

This was after he had already won silver at the Asian U18 Championships, followed by another silver at the Asian U20 Championships in 2018.

He, however, hasn’t had a very smooth transition to the senior circuit with a heavier 7.5kg hammer and took 7 years to finally breach the 70m mark this year.

But now, Singh is gradually entering the ranks of India’s elite throwers under the guidance of coach Steve Lemke at Reliance in Mumbai.

“He had a completely different technique from what I used to, and it took me a year-and-a-half to adapt to that. I can say this season, finally, I adapted to his ways of coaching,” noted Damneet about working with Lemke.

“The new technique helps me allow the hammer swing more freely with a deeper grip,” he added.

With the guidance of his new coach, Singh achieved his first goal of the year and now wants to improve his mark by at least 3 more meters to qualify for the Commonwealth Games.

However, his ultimate goal remains qualifying for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“I just want to be an Olympian and compete in the 2028 Olympics – that’s my dream,” he said..