Asian Games 2018: Who is Tajinderpal Singh Toor?

Tajinderpal Singh Toor won the gold medal in Men’s Shot Put final. REUTERS/Issei Kato

India’s Tajinderpal Singh Toor won the gold medal in Men’s Shot Put final at the 18th Asian Games Jakarta Palembang 2018, in Indonesia on Saturday. It was an action-packed performance by Toor as he moved into the top spot with his first attempt in a throw of 19.96m. However, his third attempt was a foul throw but that did not deter the 24-year-old from registering a record throw of 20.75m to clinch the yellow metal and take India’s tally to 7 gold medals at the event.

Born in 1994, Tajinderpal Singh Toor hails from a family of farmers in Moga, Punjab. Since childhood, he wanted to be a cricketer but on his father’s encouragement, he took up shot put. Toor shot to fame with medals in the Federation Cup, Interstate Competitions, and Open Nationals. In 2015, Toor joined the Indian navy.

In the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar, he won a silver medal. Last year, Toor also won silver at the Asian Indoor Championships in Turkmenistan.

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His outing in the 2018 Commonwealth Games was disappointing as he could only finish at the eighth spot. But he came back strongly to bag the gold at the 57th National inter-State athletics championships in 2018. Currently, Toor is Asia’s number one shot putter.

Expectations were always high from Tajinderpal Singh Toor and it does seem that in Jakarta he has finally come of age.