Sachin Yadav may have agonisingly missed out on a javelin throw medal at the World Athletics Championships 2025, but the 25-year-old Indian athlete has already impressed one of the sport’s all-time greats.
Germany’s Uwe Hohn, the only man in history to throw a javelin beyond 100 metres, believes Sachin Yadav has the potential to cross the 95m barrier and dominate the sport if he develops the right technique.
“He (Sachin Yadav) is definitely a 90 metre-plus thrower and if in the right hands, a 95 metre-plus thrower because he has so many things to change and that can help him produce enormous throws,” Hohn told The Indian Express.
“He needs to learn running, to get the right rhythm, work on his body position and use more than only his arm to throw. If he can learn this, he could dominate javelin throwing like (Jan) Zelezny or me.”
Uwe Hohn recorded a massive throw of 104.8m in 1984 in Berlin. A new javelin design was subsequently adopted in 1986 to shorten throws. Hohn’s mark has hence become an ‘eternal’ record.
Neeraj Chopra’s coach and three-time Olympic champion Jan Zelezny currently holds the official javelin world record with his 98.48m throw in 1996.
At Tokyo25, Sachin Yadav threw 86.27m in the opening round, finishing fourth on his World Championships debut – just 40cm short of bronze.
His effort was better than Neeraj Chopra, Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem and Diamond League winner Julian Weber on the night.
Hohn, who coached Neeraj Chopra in 2017 and 2018, said that Sachin Yadav’s “very basic” technique was leaving power untapped.
“He has a good fast arm but javelin throws are built from the ground up and there’s a big loss of power,” Hohn said. “He has things in common with Arshad but is far from Arshad’s technique and stability from last year.”
At 6’4”, Sachin Yadav shares a similar frame with Pakistan’s 6’3’’ Nadeem. Sachin and Arshad have met twice in international javelin throw competitions.
At the Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, Republic of Korea, in May, Arshad claimed the gold medal with a throw of 86.40m while Sachin Yadav settled for silver with an effort of 85.16m.