Tokyo Olympics: Athletes qualified from the Indian Navy

The Indian Navy will feature three athletes from its rank of services in the Tokyo Olympics 2020. The Indian Armed Forces has been a great advocate of sports in the country. Several Olympic medalists have emerged from the military courtesy of the brimming sporting culture in the services. Let us have a brief look at each one of them.​

Tajinderpal Singh Toor (Men's Shotput)

Indian Navy Petty Officer (PT) Tajinderpal Singh Toor broke the national and Asian record when he registered a throw of 21.49m with the iron ball in June, 2021 to book his place in the Tokyo Olympics 2021. Toor is part of the 26-member athletics contingent for India at the Tokyo Olympics.

Toor initially started with cricket in his school days, but eventually shifted to shotput. He hit the sporting headlines around the country as he broke records in 2017 with his best personal throw of 20.40m in the National Athletics Championships in Patiala. However, his personal best was not good enough to steer him to his first World Championships.

He won his first major title with the silver medal in the Asian Athletics Championship in 2017, falling short of the gold by 0.03m with a throw of 19.77m.

After a disappointing 2018 Commonwealth games, Toor punched above his weight to emerge as the Asian Games Champion in 2018, breaking the games and national record with a 20.75m throw. He repeated his Asian glory in the Asian Championships in 2019 by winning yet another Gold medal.

MP Jabir (Men's 400m Hurdles)

Indian Navy Petty Officer POCOM (Tel) Madari Pillyalil Jabir became the first Indian athletes in 33 years to seal a berth in the 400m Hurdles event in the Olympics after PT Usha's debacle in the same event back in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Jabir was ranked 32nd in the World Rankings, and sealed qualification on the ranking quota where the top 40 in the world would take the prestigious flight to Tokyo Olympics.

Jabir's first major title win was the Bronze Medal finish in the 400m Hurdles event at the 2017 Asian Athletics Championship with a clock speed of 50.22 seconds. He bettered his numbers to 49.13 seconds to win his second Bronze medal at the Asian Athletics Championships in 2019 as well.

Muhammad Anas Yahiya (Men's 4x400m Relay)

​Seaman RP (U/T) Muhammad Anas Yahiya will be part of the Indian quartet in the 4x400m Men's Relay event at the Tokyo Olympics. Yahiya is teamed up with Amoj Jacob, Arokia Rajiv, Noah Nirmal Tom and Naganathan Pandi for the 4x400m Men's Relay.

The Indian sprinters qualified for the Tokyo Olympics after a splendid performance in the Inter-State Athletic Championships in Patiala and sealed their quota on the basis of world rankings.

​Yahiya has previously won gold and silver medals in the 4x400m Relay event at the Asian Championships in 2017 and 2019 respectively. He was part of the Silver medal finish in the 4x400m event in the 2018 Asian Games as well.