A groin injury suffered during the Asian Athletics Championships by Indian national shot-put champion Tajinderpal Singh Toor has forced the reigning Asian Games champion to withdraw from the World Athletics Championships in Budapest.

After his massive first throw of 19.80m at the Asian Athletics, we saw him struggling to walk and heard his coach Praveer Singh saying from the stand “Ohh Khad ja ab jada jor na layi, Asian Games jaruri hai” (Settle down now, Don’t Push too hard as Asian Games is more Important).

Toor was, however, concerned about another competitor from Saudi Arabia who had also crossed the 19m mark. Toor’s coach then remarked: “Ab Sardar ko gussa agya, ab ye bada marega” (He is angry now, he will go for the bigger throw).

The coach was right. Toor’s next throw was the golden one – 20.23m.

Toor mentioned this while speaking to NNIS Sports.

There, however, is a question was the huge throw for winning the Asian Athletics gold worth it, as Toor had already qualified for the World Athletics 2023 with the massive throw of 21.77m at the Inter-state which also bettered his previous national and Asian record of 21.49m set two years ago.

“Yes, I’m not going to the world championships due to an injury. I have done an MRI, but nothing has come in, only muscle stiffness. I’m doing weight training now and doing standing throws. And I hope that I will be fine before the Asian Games.” Toor told NNIS Sports.

He also didn’t get a chance to compete at the World Athletics Championship 2022 after failing to recover from the adductor muscle strain which he suffered four days before the competition at a training session in Chula Vista, USA.

Toor is currently ranked 20th in the world rankings with his best throw of 21.77m, while current world champion is Ryan CROUSER leads the world field with 23.07m.