Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra eyes 90m mark this year
Riding high on a series of success stories over the last couple of years, including the Tokyo Olympics gold, India’s Neeraj Chopra has now set himself a target in the New Year – breach the 90-metre mark with his javelin.
The 24-year-old Olympic champion javelin thrower has continued to raise expectations with a silver at the World Championships, before adding another feather to his cap by winning the Diamond League Finals gold. However, despite his superlative shows, the magical 90m mark continues to elude him.
In a video interaction from England, where he is undergoing off-season training, Chopra told reporters, “In this new year, I hope I will put an end to this question.” He came agonisingly close to the target with his 89.94m throw when he finished second in the Stockholm leg of the prestigious Diamond League. In hindsight, Chopra thinks he could have achieved the mark in Stockholm. “I could have done that if I landed my foot a few centimetres ahead.”
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“Yes, it is just a matter of six cm – but a magical mark for an athlete. Whenever you talk about a top athlete we all say like this he has done 90m. But, I’m not bothered about the pressure of expectations. It will happen when it has to. It could have happened last year or the year before, but maybe God has kept a perfect time and place for that.”
Incidentally, Chopra is not bogged down by the pressure of expectations as he said that he always took them positively. “I don’t think much about the expectations. Yes, you have to handle both your own and others’ expectations. But when I’m competing, my mind goes blank. It’s about giving it your all, your 100 per cent thinking that you have prepared for just this day. And somewhere these expectations from the people who love me play a positive part.”
The penultimate year before the Paris Olympics has a host of important events lined up, including the rescheduled Asian Games in Hangzhou, and Chopra said they are yet to take a call on when to start preparations.
Keeping that in mind, Chopra is right now just focused on strength-building exercises in indoor training in England and when they shift their training base to South Africa he would switch to javelin throws.
An injured Chopra could not defend his gold at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games owing to an injury but his compatriots, such as long jumper Murali Sreeshankar and steeplechaser Avinash Sable, clinched historic silver while competing among the world’s top pool.
Chopra believes Indian athletics is on the rise and hopes to see more glorious days ahead. “In world athletics, our men’s field ranking is 9, it’s a good thing. I think we will do better as athletes,” he signed off.
