E-Paper
The gold standard: Neeraj Chopra masters the art of conquering the world
Neeraj Chopra is now at a place where no Indian athlete even dared to dream of being at and he is only 25 years old.
The story of a teenaged Neeraj Chopra taking his baby steps in javelin throw by watching videos of Czech champion Jan Zelezny is one that has been told and retold countless times. It is an old story now, some may even say putting it as an introduction to any write-up on Chopra is an outdated trick, one that should be abandoned. For Neeraj is now beginning to match Zelezny in a number of ways.
No, the 25-year-old has not yet equaled or surpassed Zelezny's world record throw of 98.48m. In fact, it is just as well that he hasn't done that, or even crossed the 90m mark, for he has now won the lot in his sport. Going past the 90m mark is the only thing that hasn't done and maybe that is good. At least that is what normal human beings, the kind that make up a vast majority of the species currently living on this planet, would be inclined to believe. Not crossing the 90m mark gives Neeraj something to work towards despite having won everything in sight.
But that is not how the man himself thinks, which again, should come as no surprise. If an elite athlete's thoughts took the same route as they do in the brains of an average Joe, then holding the continental, World and Olympic titles would be a regular occurrence. "I still have a lot to achieve. It's not as if I have won all these medals so I'll rest easy. I want to repeat this success year after year. I also want more Indians to join me on the podium. That will be fun," he said after becoming the first Indian to win a World Athletics Championships gold on Sunday.
"I am a thrower and we throwers don't have a finish line. So, I'll keep going. Motivation has never been a problem for me. There is always room for improvement. My throwing can definitely get better. I wanted to give my all today too but the adductor strain was also playing on my mind," he added.
Neeraj's career haul thus far
Let's go back to him starting to match Zelezny. The Czech great and Norway's Andreas Thorkildsen were the only two javelin throwers to have accomplished the treble of winning the continental, World and Olympic titles until Sunday. Neeraj had won gold at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and now at the 2023 World Athletics Championships. He is the first Indian javelin thrower to win gold at the Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, Olympics and the athletics World Championships. In addition to that, he was junior World Champion in 2016 and won the Diamond League in 2022.
There is another way of putting into perspective just how ridiculously unprecedented his entire career is in the history of Indian sports. Among the major senior competitions he has competed in since 2017, it is only at the 2022 World Championships that he missed out on gold. He had won silver due to Grenada's Anderson Peters managing a monster throw of 90.54. Even that was the best result any Indian had ever managed in the competition. It also made him one of just two Indian athletes to have won a medal in the competition. Anju Bobby George was the first when she won bronze in women's long jump at the 2003 Paris World Championships. Neeraj's performance on Sunday thus made him the first Indian to win more than one athletics World Championships medals in his career.
Staying on track
All of this came while Neeraj was still in his early 20s. He is only 25 years old - Zelezny was 28 and Thorkildsen was 27 when they accomplished the treble of Olympic, Continental and World titles. What adds to his legend, as it did for the likes of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, is his almost unfailingly composed demeanor.
The gold medal win at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics was followed by an avalanche of interviews and media obligations. Anyone who has been through the ringer like that knows just how crushingly monotonous they can get. The questions start sounding similar and the need for good content leads to some very awkward ones being thrown at you. The fact that Neeraj on Sunday thanked Indian fans for staying up late and supporting him in a video posted by journalist Jonathan Selvaraj didn't go unnoticed. There were also many who put a reminder on social media that Neeraj was among the few from the world of Indian sports who raised their voice in support of his fellow athletes during the 2023 Indian wrestlers' protest.
Ask an athlete about their motivation to keep going despite having enjoyed significant success and you might get an answer filled with cliché. Nothing wrong with those - an athlete's success on the field is what really matters, but Neeraj's honesty in that department is also quite refreshing. Before he said that javelin throwers "don’t have a finish line", Neeraj admitted that the nature of the hunger with which he used to pursue the spot has now changed. "That same hunger is not there now," he admitted. And so, his new hunger has been directed towards maintaining longevity.
He didn't come into these championships in the best of shapes, unlike what was the case at the Tokyo Olympics. Apart from making his achievement look even more ridiculous, this gives him a chance to go from one competition to the other without the distraction of thoughts about the far future. “The main thing is to understand my body again. Maybe I push myself a lot more in competition. I sometimes feel I push myself more than I am capable of. That’s why I get injured,” he says.
