Davinder Singh Kang is loud, boisterous and isn’t bashful about winning. For his sake, you wish he was a little self-effacing but the man is all heart and you want him to be a decathlete rather than a javelin thrower. But, for the moment, track fans in India and here in London are transfixed by an Indian who has gatecrashed a party that houses the elite 12 javelin throwers of the world. When Kang qualified, he made it into a 13-man jamboree. He was not supposed to be the original sign-in member for the elite-12 member team. When Neeraj Chopra couldn’t pull it off, Kang had to step in. And he did it in style with a throw of 84.22m. Fist clenched towards his half of the stadium, Kang knew he had realised a dream.
“I wanted to be in the final very badly,” said Kang after the qualifications were over. “The first two throws were slightly off balance and I had to get it right in the final throw. You train for these moments and I got it right.”
Davinder Singh Kang | Reuters
Kang never knew that Chopra had not qualified. The army man was in Group B while Chopra had thrown and left from Group A. It was only during his second throw that deputy chief coach R.K. Nair gestured that Chopra had not qualified. “That kind of fired me up,” said Kang. “In this World Championships, we don’t have even a single final placing. I had to do it. I needed to enter the final for my country.”
For a man who has plied his trade for the last 16 years without much push by the Athletic Federation of India, this performance is as much a win as a vindication. “I don’t want to get into all that,” he says with a smile. “Let’s look at the final and let me push my shoulder to breaking point and see if there is a medal in it for it.”
Kang’s shoulder has been taped up. He has been carrying an injury for a year or so. Even during the Asian Athletic Championships where he won a bronze, his shoulder was giving him trouble. But, in India, sport means carrying the burden. And Kang did that without a moan to anyone. “I kept training keeping in mind that at the World Championships, I will do my best,” he says. “I can’t let go of such an opportunity.”
Even when he tested positive for Marijuana, he told NADA and the Federation that he didn’t take it voluntarily and had ingested it through a concoction taken from the ‘local doctor’ which had a little ground bhang in it. Kang explained how his body was heating up and he was bleeding from the nose. But he never realised that it might pop up in his urine sample and cause issues. But thankfully, he was allowed to participate in the Asian Championships and since he had qualified for the worlds, London was his calling.
WADA’s ruling is quite clear on the use of marijuana where it states that ‘the raising of the threshold is meant to catch only athletes who smoke during the period of a competition. The drug isn’t prohibited out of competition.’ WADA also said that because of changing laws and views about marijuana and because the drug didn’t have any obvious performance-enhancing qualities and neither did it help develop greater athletic skills it isn’t much of an issue as it was in years past.
Kang enters Olympic Park on August 12, which would be the biggest night of his career. Standing alongside Johannes Vetter (94.44m), Thomas Rohler (93.90m), Tero Pitkamaki (91.53m), Julius Yego (92.72m) and Keshorn Walcott (90.16m), Kang appears to have walked into the wrong competition. In fact, among the 13 finalists, his personal best of 84.57m is the lowest. “I am not bothered about that,” says Kang. “I will give everything for the country and give it all that I have to try and get a podium.” In a big final like that, sometimes, once in a while, big throws dry up. What then helps is a big heart. Kang probably has the biggest of them all.
