Sleeplessness is the athlete’s silent enemy: The Sporting Life by Rudraneil Sengupta

It’s often worst at big events, such as the Asian Games. From bedside tokens to photoshoots, some use simple hacks, others get creative in the search for a fix.

Neeraj Chopra had no competition. The plan, as it often is for him, was to get the first javelin throw just right, and then it would be done — the world and Olympic champion would remain the Asia champion too, having successfully defended his 2018 Asian Games gold in Hangzhou.

As it turned out, he did all those things. But not before a fairly tottery start in which he was bested by fellow Indian and eventual silver medallist Kishore Jena.