Annu Rani must have been thinking, 'Not again. Not this.'
After three throws in the women's javelin at the Asian Games, Rani had been leading the field with a throw of 61.28m. It had been the best throw of her season, by the proverbial country mile. For the first time in five seasons, she had missed hitting the 60m mark through the year and had been struggling since winning the bronze medal at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
That bronze and the bronze at the 2014 Asian Games had been her best medals so far in her long career. Now 31, she'd dominated Indian javelin for a decade. Nine times she's broken the national record, and since she first broke it in 2014, no one has come close to touching it. She'd been women javelin's Neeraj Chopra when Neeraj was still a boy, and yet a truly big gold had always eluded her.
And she'd pulled out a 60 from the hat when she needed it the most on Tuesday at Hangzhou. Two throws later, Sri Lanka's Nadeesha Lekamge hit 61.57m and pushed Rani down to silver. By 29 centimetres. It was a personal best for Lekamge, and she'd delivered it when it mattered the most, yet Rani would have been feeling a sense of deja vu.
Surely Rani couldn't hit a 60m again: her season had been so bad that no previews mentioned her as even a medal contender, no promos were shot with her, no special telecast was arranged for her. Everybody had seemingly written her off. The 61.28m had been a minor miracle. There was now no way she could repeat it. Surely?
What made it even tougher was that this was a stacked field, and then some. Coiled and waiting in third was reigning Olympic and Asiad champion Liu Shiying of China. Ahead of her was Liu's compatriot and the reigning Asiad silver medalist and current Asian record holder Lyu Huihui. This was the kind of high pressure that had seen Rani crack before at these big stages, throwing well below what she was always capable of.
As she saw 61.57m go next to Lekamge's name on the board, though, she prepared, cutting out the noise, de-focusing from her competition, blinders on. In her very next throw, she hurled her entire being across the Hangzhou Olympic sports center stadium, the javelin seemingly propelled as much by her roar as the sheer momentum generated by her all-action run-up. As she stopped herself from crossing the foul line and turned around with her arms up in the air, index fingers pointing up, the number came flashing across the board: 62.92m.
The javelin is an explosive act that plays out in the most slow-burn way possible, and even after this beast of a throw, she had to wait. And wait. And wait. Till the board finally showed what she'd been waiting nearly a decade to see: Annu Rani. 62.92m. India's first woman gold medalist in this event at the Asian Games.
Finally, glory was hers.
Rani had walked into the Asian Games with the feeling of what should have been, how much more she should have won. She walks out of it with gold around her neck and a massive smile on her face, safe in the knowledge that India's best is also now Asia's best.