18-year-old Yan Ziyi claimed the Asian Games javelin gold with a record-breaking first throw, showcasing her outstanding talent and great potential in future global events.
Yan Ziyi stood in the rain on a rainy night in Nagoya and threw the javelin 70.46 meters on her very first attempt. As the number flashed up on the big screen, the entire stadium fell silent for a moment, then erupted in cheers. She didn’t throw a second time—she forfeited her remaining five attempts, as the gold medal was already hers.
This 18-year-old girl from Ningbo nearly quit practicing as a child because her “clothes were always filthy.”In third grade, her physical education teacher noticed she could throw a softball farther than the boys and recruited her for the track and field team. But at the time, all she wanted was to go home in a clean school uniform like her classmates, so she complained to her father that she didn’t want to practice anymore. Her father simply replied, “Try your hardest first. If it doesn’t work out, then you can quit.”
That one sentence was enough to keep her on the playground.
She went on to train in the shot put for seven years, but her results remained mediocre. Lu Xiurong, her coach at the sports school, realized that this young woman’s height, explosiveness, and coordination simply weren’t suited for the shot put—she was meant for the javelin.Starting at age ten, Yan Ziyi gradually shifted her focus from shot put—which she had been doing as a secondary event—to javelin.
Her rise in javelin has been astonishingly rapid. In 2023, at the age of 15, she competed abroad for the first time at the U15 World School Games, where she won gold medals in both the shot put and the javelin.In 2024, at age 16, she “skipped a level” to compete in the national adult division, where a single throw of 64.28 meters immediately broke the world U20 record—a distance that even exceeded the qualifying standard for the Paris Olympics. At the 2025 National Championships, despite an injury, she threw 65.89 meters, setting a new world junior record for the fourth time.
In May of this year, the day after her 18th birthday, she threw 71.74 meters on her first attempt at the Diamond League meet in Xiamen. She broke the Asian record and the world junior record; this performance ranks as the second-best in women’s javelin history, just 54 centimeters shy of the world record.After that throw, she opted not to make any further attempts—the championship was already a foregone conclusion.
But what really had everyone on the edge of their seats was the two weeks leading up to the Asian Games. At the World Athletics Final, she took the lead with a first throw of 68.05 meters,but in the second round, she suffered a soft tissue injury in her right foot. After being evaluated by the team doctor, she decided to forgo further attempts. In the end, she was overtaken by Japanese star Haruka Kitaguchi, who threw 68.92 meters, ending her undefeated streak for the season. After the competition, Haruka Kitaguchi publicly declared her intention to defeat her on home soil.
Is two weeks enough time to heal an injured foot?
On the day of the Asian Games final, it never stopped raining in Nagoya. On the slippery track, every stride of the run-up was a risk for someone with an injury to her right foot. There were even rumors within the team that she might withdraw from the race. But she took her place on the starting line.
First throw: a running start, a twist of the waist, a swing of the arm—the javelin traced an arc and plunged into the soggy ground. 70.46 meters. Beikou Zhenhua hadn’t thrown past 62 meters all season; she fell short by nearly 8 meters.
In the mixed zone after the competition, tears were still glistening in Yan Ziyi’s eyes. She said she hadn’t expected to “wrap things up” with just one shot; her original plan had been to perform well on her first two shots. Two weeks ago, she didn’t take first place, and she felt she had let everyone down. She had been bottling up that pressure, but this shot finally allowed her to let it all out.
She once said, “Talent alone isn’t enough; I definitely have to practice hard to bring out my talent.”
That statement certainly applies to her.
