Three months ago, Anushka Yadav had taken ownership of India’s women’s hammer throw record and, in the process, given her training partner Tanya Chaudhary a new target. On Thursday night at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Tanya answered in the only way a thrower knows how. She threw farther.
With the Asian Games only days away, Chaudhary produced the biggest throw of her career, sending the hammer 68.35m on her fifth attempt to reclaim the national record at the Indian Athletics Series Final. The mark erased Anushka’s 67.02m record, set at the Inter-State Championships in June, and gave India’s women’s hammer throw contingent a major boost before heading to Aichi-Nagoya.
The drama did not end with the record. Anushka, who had rewritten the national mark herself only in June, responded with a 66.34m effort to finish second. The two athletes from Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, have now turned what began as a shared training environment into one of the most intriguing domestic rivalries in Indian athletics. “It feels fantastic to smash the national record. And it feels even better because Anushka and I come from the same training ground and it keeps pushing both of us to improve,” Tanya said, when speaking with reporters after rewriting the record books.
The numbers tell the story of just how dramatic Tanya’s progression has been. She produced two throws beyond 65m before unleashing the 68.35m effort, adding more than three metres to the previous national record and moving significantly beyond her earlier personal best. World Athletics now lists 68.35m as Tanya’s personal best, achieved on September 10, 2026.
But the record was not simply the product of a good night. It was the culmination of a season in which Tanya had been forced to fight her way back from injury. “I had three injuries at once. There was a Baker’s cyst in the knee, a stress injury in the femur bone, and problems with the ACL as well,” Tanya revealed. “The injury had been there since January, but we didn’t take it seriously at first. It got worse, so we did an MRI in April. Then my coach Sachin Yadav and I focused on recovery and worked on my weaknesses during a few weeks of rest,” she added.
The interruptions meant that Tanya entered the Indian Athletics Series Final with limited competition under her belt. Yet instead of allowing the disrupted season to dictate her trajectory, she produced a throw that has suddenly transformed the outlook for her Asian Games campaign. Her journey to the record has also been intertwined with Anushka’s rise.
Anushka, only 18, stunned the domestic athletics scene in June when she broke the women’s hammer throw national record twice in one evening before settling at 67.02m. That performance also helped secure her Asian Games qualification and established her as one of India’s brightest emerging field-event prospects.
Tanya saw it differently. “I had been chasing the national record for three years, and when Anushka broke the record, I got a new target, and we started working on my weaknesses,” said Tanya. For Anushka, losing the record barely registers as a setback. “It’s actually good that my record has been broken. Only when a new mark is set do we feel the real push to go further. If the record just sits there, what’s the point?”
Their rivalry is unusual because it is built on familiarity rather than hostility. Both train in Baghpat and have shared the same training environment, with each athlete’s improvement effectively raising the standard for the other. Hindustan Times reported that the pair grew up in the same locality and trained at the same ground at Sri Krishna Inter College in Baleni village.
That relationship could become particularly significant in Japan. Both Tanya and Anushka are part of India’s 2026 Asian Games athletics squad. The Games begin on September 19, meaning Tanya’s record-breaking performance has arrived at almost the perfect moment for her confidence.
“My target at the Asian Games is to keep improving. My personal best has already jumped, and even the 70-metre mark doesn’t feel that far away now,” she said. “I had aimed to hit 70 metres this year, but the injuries delayed it. Now that I’m finding my momentum again, I’m confident I’ll achieve that target soon,” she added. The significance of the 68.35m mark extends beyond Tanya herself.
India’s women’s hammer throw record has moved rapidly in recent months, first from Sarita Singh’s long-standing 65.25m mark to Anushka’s 67.02m in June, and now to Tanya’s 68.35m in September. The latest performance therefore represents not just an individual breakthrough but the emergence of a genuine domestic rivalry capable of pushing the event forward.
And there was another national record on the same night. Delhi’s Nirbhay Choudhary won the men’s hammer throw with 71.02m, surpassing Neeraj Kumar’s previous national mark of 70.73m from 2016. It made the Indian Athletics Series Final an extraordinary evening for the hammer event, with national records falling in both the men’s and women’s competitions.
For Tanya, however, the timing could hardly be better. After months of injury management and a season interrupted before it had properly begun, she has arrived at the Asian Games with momentum, a new national record and a training partner who knows exactly how to push her.
Tanya Chaudhary’s 68.35m should be viewed as more than another national record. It is evidence of a healthy shift in Indian women’s athletics, where young competitors are no longer simply chasing established benchmarks but are creating an environment in which records can change hands within months. The most encouraging aspect is the relationship between Tanya and Anushka.
Their rivalry is competitive without being destructive, and each new mark appears to give the other athlete another reason to improve. If that cycle continues, the Asian Games could be the beginning of a much bigger story for Indian women’s hammer throw.
In Aichi-Nagoya, Tanya will not simply be chasing a medal. She will arrive carrying the confidence of India’s longest throw, while standing alongside the athlete who pushed her to produce it. And with 70 metres now firmly in her sights, India’s hammer throw record may not have finished moving yet.
