On Target

JAVELIN thrower Neeraj Chopra, India’s golden boy, can do no wrong. He broke his own national record twice in less than three weeks, after returning to competitive sport after a long break – yet he’s breaking the internet for something for which he doesn’t stretch his sinews: After winning silver at the elite Diamond League event in Stockholm, he was characteristically humble and polite, bowing down before an elderly fan to touch his feet. If there still existed sports fans he hadn’t charmed, this gesture got them into the fold.

Two personal bests should put to rest any fear about the motivation levels of Chopra, India’s greatest Olympian in individual sport. At age 23, Chopra was an Olympics champion. For most sportspersons, that’s a career high – it really doesn’t get better than this, winning gold at the quadrennial festival of sport.

When Chopra came back to India from the Tokyo Olympics, he was caught up in a storm of celebrations – India’s first-ever athletics medallist in the Olympics didn’t deserve anything less. But it affected his practice. Even as his competitors got back on the field, Chopra ended his competitive season due to exhaustion, not caused by competition or practice but due to felicitations and celebrations and illness.

Big boy

Things were far from ideal. After the Tokyo gold, Chopra ballooned – having cut short the season, he had decided he’d eat all he wanted. By his own admission, he gained up to 13kg during the break. For an elite athlete, such weight gain could be catastrophic.

Chopra resumed training in the first week of December 2021, at Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Centre in San Diego, California. This is a hub of the world’s top athletes, and around 4,000 athletes train here every year.

Chopra, away from the ghee and sugar-laden churma of home, got into the groove quickly – he lost 5kg in 20 days, coming down to his normal off-season weight. It was very tough, he said, because his body was hurting and he had to put in extra effort into everything. But he wasn’t going to rest on his Tokyo laurels – he was training in real earnest and got into top shape.

Training in San Diego, Chopra was focused on the big events of the year 2022, including the World Championships, Diamond League events, the Asian and Commonwealth Games. The idea was to hit the 90-metre mark. He’d won gold in Tokyo with a throw of 87.58, which was more than 10m short of the personal best of Germany’s Johannes Vetter, who hit 97.76m in September 2020.

You could argue that Chopra got lucky as Vetter, who had gone past 90m seven times in the year before the Tokyo Olympics, got into an inexplicable slump; but then, in a high-pressure event such as the Olympics, he who overcomes pressure and nerves gets gold – you have to keep the body loose and the mind free, nail the technique and let the muscle memory work. Chopra did that perfectly in Tokyo, even as Vetter faded early in the final.

Personal best

Chopra’s two personal bests in recent days, both close to the elusive 90m mark, augur well, with the World Championships just around the corner, to be held in Eugene (USA) from July 15 to 24.

Chopra seems to be peaking at just the right time – in the Stockholm Diamond League, his throws were 89.94m, 84.37m, 87.46m, 84.77m, 86.67m and 86.84. With 89.94, he improved upon his previous best of 89.30m, which he had recorded on June 14 in Turku, Finland.

In three competitions this year, he’s been impressively consistent, having thrown over 85m eight times in 10 legal throws. No wonder after winning silver in Stockholm, Chopra said: “It felt amazing to be back on the Diamond League circuit and even better to get a new PB (personal best)! Next stop: Representing India at the World Championships in Eugene.”

What are Chopra’s chances of winning a medal at the World Championships? Well, his 89.94m at Stockholm is the year’s third-best throw, and only world champion Anderson Peters of Grenada and Czech Republic’s Jakub Vadlejch have thrown farther than him.

Chopra is a cool character and, after winning silver in Stockholm, said he feels no pressure of being the Olympics champion. “As I had been saying, only when I start to compete I would know if there was any pressure of being Olympic champion. But now nothing like that I feel,” he said. “I’m participating with a free mind and performing well.”

In elite athletics, keeping cool under immense pressure is a rare quality. Chopra has it, and it could make him only the second Indian after long jumper Anju Bobby George to climb the podium at the World Championships. Then we could celebrate a bit more.