It has the fanciful quality of fiction. More so like a fable. Its end may not, eventually, match the start. If it does, understand, the sporting landscape may yet again alter; like when it changed in the evening of June 25th, 1983 (India winning the 1983 cricket World Cup), or on August 11, 2008, (Abhinav Bindra winning Olympic gold) when conversations started and stirred around a 10m air rifle and August 7th, 2021 (Neeraj Chopra, Olympic javelin gold), when one of the protagonists of (this) fable, mutated it, or more so shook India out of its reverie. Where the javelin from just being a spear, an unknown object became a vehicle for aspiration and ambition, fuelled by the energy of thousands of youngsters, eager to climb to the top of the javelin pole.

And, we still could have been four in the final; Rohit Yadav’s elbow surgery ruling him out of the World Championships, after having qualified. Rohit’s personal best is 83.40 metre.