Ekta Bhyan followed her gold medal at last year's World Para Athletics Championship with a silver in the women's club throw F51 event at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Saturday, but knew there would not be much time for celebrations. Her effort of 19.80m brought the 40-year-old from Hisar her third Worlds medal, but she will soon be brought back to training by her coach, two-time world para silver medallist and two-time Para Asian Games champion Amit Saroha. Ekta, who won the gold last year at Kobe, Japan, with a best throw of 20.12m, said the weather in Delhi contributed to her not reaching her best mark. “I am happy that I have won my third World Championship medal here. Yes, there was this challenge of thermo-regulation and the grip, including the glue, in the humid conditions here in Delhi, but I will learn from it. We had worked on handling the new redesigned club and to win the silver medal here with this revamped club design will only motivate me further,” Ekta told The Indian Express. Saturday's silver brought her the full roster of medals as she had won a bronze at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships in Paris registering a distance of 17.93m. Ekta suffered spinal cord injuries when a loaded truck fell on the van she was travelling in while going for her medical coaching from Sonepat to Delhi in 2006. She met Saroha nine years ago, and won the gold at the 2018 Asian Para Games with a mark of 16.02m. She registered her personal best of 21.66m at the 2023 Asian Para Games in Hangzhou. While she won the gold at last year’s World Championships in Kobe, Ekta has had to adjust to the redesigned club, where the weight is evenly distributed at the end as well the tip. Saroha, who was watching from the stands on Saturday, talks about the new challenge for athletes like Ekta. “Club throwers like Ekta rely on their side movements as well as the strength from the area above the waist. She uses the sidearm technique for throwing, and would struggle with the new club. The challenge was to make her throws more accurate in terms of angles. So we would spend a lot of time getting it right,” Saroha said. Late rally On Saturday, Ekta would not cross the 19m mark in her first three attempts before managing 19.60m in the fourth. She would improve to 19.80m in her final attempt to ensure herself of the silver behind Zoia Ovsii of Ukraine (24.03m). After being absent from the Tokyo and Paris Paralympics, the women’s club throw F51 event has returned for the Los Angeles edition in 2028. Ekta knows she has to work on her strength as well as consistency with the glue playing a huge part in the club throw event. “One thing which Amit sir has imbibed in me is that training in rainy conditions, humid conditions, or hot weather only adds to our advantage. We rely heavily on the glue bonding the club with our fingers and the weather can affect it. While I depend on the side-throw technique, I also have to work on getting the right angles and understanding the dynamics of the revamped club so that we can achieve more distance,” she said. “When my event was dropped from the Paris Paralympics, I was among the world’s top 3-4 throwers but now with the re-introduction of the event at LA, winning a medal there is my biggest target,” said Ekta, who is currently working as assistant director with the department of employment, Haryana.
