Bengaluru: As newly minted Olympic medallists are whisked from one photo op to the next in India, Neeraj Chopra is thousands of miles away from the cacophony, quietly returning to the grind. The two-time medallist is currently training in the tiny Swiss village of Magglingen in the canton of Bern, accompanied by coach Klaus Bartonietz.
The Indian javelin superstar will return to competition at the Lausanne Diamond League on August 22, exactly two weeks after his Paris silver medal. He plans to see the season through (Zurich and Brussels) before heading for a medical consultation regarding surgery for a long-standing groin issue. In a backwards cap and red jacket with bare, whitewashed walls behind him, Neeraj spoke of battling physical limitations but not being short of belief after Arshad Nadeem’s monster 92.97m Olympic record throw on the night of the Olympics final.
“I did not have even 1 per cent doubt that I couldn’t better it,” said Neeraj in a JSW-facilitated online media interaction. “In javelin, improving your distance by 3-4m is not a huge deal. It wasn’t that I couldn’t have made that distance but I just couldn’t push myself that much. Mentally I was ready but physically I was holding myself back. My legwork on the runway wasn’t good. To compensate for it I was trying to put in a lot of effort in the throws. Unless your legwork and technique are good no matter how much you push yourself, it doesn’t work. I have been able to manage my injury though, it hasn’t worsened.”
The purple and fast Mondo track at the Stade de France also had Neeraj struggling and he wound up with an unusually high number of fouls. “One or two of my fouls were perhaps intentional. But the track was so fast that normally from where I start my cross step, I was already reaching very close to the line in Paris. That was a bit of a problem.”
Chopra was recommended surgery months ahead of the Budapest World Championships last year. He decided to not go ahead with it then and chose to instead focus on the competition since it was the one major medal he was missing. He finished with gold and the sash of world champion.
For the guy who’s only India’s second individual Olympic gold medallist, after Abhinav Bindra, a silver in his second Olympics can seem unexciting for him. He stood there, glum-faced after his 89.45m throw fetched him the silver.
“Gold toh gold hota hai (A gold medal is a gold medal),” he said. “You can’t compare it with silver or bronze. When you win gold, the national anthem is played. I was missing that. Given how it’s been for me (because of the injury), I’m happy with what I got and my performance.”
Neeraj’s consistency at major competitions has been so remarkable that the disappointment over him winning silver — the only medal of its kind India won in Paris — and the fact that people in the country stayed up well past midnight to watch him compete, are a testament to how high he has raised the bar and drummed up interest in a sport that’s not cricket.
Even when he was not at his best, and consumed by thoughts of worsening his injury, he could still pull off a second place in a stacked field.
“To improve my distance, I need to be injury free. Because of the injury I haven’t been doing enough throwing sessions. Without it you can’t focus on technique or work on improvements. When I run with the javelin and take a cross step that’s when the strain falls on the groin. In Paris, my arm speed was good but the javelin line was getting disturbed, curling inside. I need to work on it.”
Questions of crossing the 90m barrier have dogged him for a while. He’s probably a little sick of it – “Uparwale pe chodna padega.” (Let’s leave it to God). Neeraj, who is likely to return to India at the end of September, says his mother often worries for him when she sees his weight training videos. “She’ll tell me to lift less weight and not do too intense training,” he laughs.
On the subject of odd gifts and his Pakistani friend, rival and Paris gold medallist Nadeem being given a buffalo by his father-in-law, Neeraj said someone once gifted him ghee. “In Haryana we get things like this… 10kg or 50kg ghee. Even laddoos. The state has a tradition of wrestling and people believe that eating desi ghee helps improve strength. Buffaloes are also given as gifts. Bullet bikes and tractors too in wrestling.”
Reflecting on India’s performance in Paris – five bronze medals, apart from his silver, the 26-year-old said he liked the fight put up by Indian athletes. “Mentally, we need to be strong. Our future is in good hands. If you talk of medals, it’s less than Tokyo. Had Vinesh got her medal, the count would have been the same. But lots of fourth positions. We need to work on changing the bronze to silver and silver to gold.”