Who is Uwe Hohn, Neeraj Chopra’s former coach who holds record for 104.80 m throw?

New Delhi: Uwe Hohn was the coach of India’s ace javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, but he once held the world record for the farthest javelin throw. It was under his coaching that Neeraj Chopra won gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and 2018 Asian Games. Hohn was appointed to coach the top javelin throwers in India, including Neeraj Chopra, Shivpal Singh and Annu Rani in 2017. Hohn was Chopra’s coach from 2017 to 2018.

About Uwe Hohn and the world record

Uwe Hohn, born in 1962 in Germany, Hohn started to play the javelin throw during his teenage. In an interview with The Hindu, he told that when he was 14, he watched a documentary on the 1972 Olympic champion Klaus Wolfermann and it was then that he thought about throwing 100m. Around eight years later, in 1984, At the Olympic Day of Athletics meet in Berlin, he set an unbreakable world record.

In Berlin, he went on to throw the javelin at a distance of 104.80 m and became the first and the only person to throw the spear beyond the 100 m mark. He broke Tom Petranoff’s World record of 99.72 m, which was set just a year earlier. In the interview, he said that he had a throw of 99.52 m a couple of months before, which he thinks was not a perfect one. This gave him the confidence that he could go beyond the 100 m mark.

His world record came a few days before the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. However, he did not win an Olympic medal as his country East Germany, boycotted the event. The gold medal in the Men’s Javelin Throw was won by Finland’s Arto Harkonen with a throw of 86.76 m.

His achievements include gold medals at European U20 Championships, European Championships and World (Continental) Cup. He has also coached China’s Zhao Qinggang, who won the gold at the 2014 Asian Games. He also experimented with Discuss Throw and had a personal best of 59.80 m.

Change in Javelin Throw

Hohn crossing the 100 m mark and other athletes coming closer to it became a reason for a change in the equipment that changed the game forever. The centre of gravity of the javelin was shifted 4 cm forward as the authorities were concerned that the javelin throwers will throw the spear so far that it will touch the track, hampering the events on track.

This change in 1986 erased all the records before it. The new and the official world record in Men’s Javelin throw is currently held by Jan Zelezny who threw the javelin at a distance of 98.48 m in Germany on 25 May 1996.