At 20, there is little that unnerves Neeraj Chopra. The big stage brings out the best in him, the competition drives him to do better and pressure is an alien concept for the little, big kid.
Barring Olympics, the Asian Games is the biggest event for any Indian athlete and on Monday, Chopra made it all his own, in his maiden outing in the quadrennial games. So much at ease he was in each one of his six attempts – two of them fouled – that he would not even look back at the landing of the javelin, assured of his effort. The third of those crossed 88.06m, a new national record and just shy of the Games record (89.15m). It gave him a 5m lead over his nearest opponent’s personal best and put him firmly en route to the gold.
“Pressure to kya hi tha, training achhi thi to pressure to kuch aisa khas nahi tha (the training was good so there was no pressure really,” Chopra said with a shrug and a smile immediately after the event. The confidence has been the hallmark of the man since he burst on Indian consciousness with a historical Junior World Championship gold and a new record in 2016. It comes from a single-minded focus on getting better and quiet belief in his own hard work. All of it, however, has affected neither his humility nor his honesty.
Monday’s victory made Chopra only the second Indian after Milkha Singh in 1958 to win the CWG and Asian Games gold in the same year. For the Panipat kid, this is just the beginning. “There is not much time too enjoy or celebrate, I have another competition in 3-4 days so will now get down to train for that (the Zurich Diamond League on August 30). Happy with the gold but if the technique had been slightly better I could have crossed the 90m mark as well here,” he stressed.
Not exactly the words from someone who has just set a new national record and won gold, but then Chopra has always been clear about his bigger targets. Every victory, for him, is only a stepping stone to the next level – just like the CWG gold was, with yet another personal best at that time, in yet another maiden outing. He even said it wasn’t exactly the perfect throw, the way he would have liked it to be, regardless of the distance.
“I wouldn’t call it a perfect throw because my throws were going a bit high today and not hitting the right line and point. If that had happened, it could have been an even better distance. But sometimes you have the feeling that you have done really well, you put your entire body weight on the javelin and know it will go the distance. Unfortunately, it went too high and I couldn’t even see where it went. I only saw it after it landed. I had thought it would be an Asiad record but fell a little short. No worries, next time,” he said when asked to explain his gold-winning throw.
Up next would be the World Championships next year and then the Olympics – the two big-ticket medals missing from his cabinet, simply because he has not participated in them yet. He was being modest in saying he would try his best but if he does that, they could soon be added to his already burgeoning list of achievements.
