Labelled as ‘Kangana Ranaut of sports’ for Neeraj Chopra comment, Saina Nehwal hits back at trolls

Chandigarh, August 14

Indian badminton player Saina Nehwal recently faced social media backlash after her confession on a podcast.

While speaking to podcaster Shubhankar Mishra in the interview, Saina admitted that she did not know that “javelin throw” was an Olympic sport until Neeraj Chopra won gold medal in 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

She said, “When Neeraj won (gold in 2011 Tokyo Olympics), that’s when I got to know there is such an event in athletics. You’ll gain knowledge only when you see it, right? If you don’t see, how will you know? I did not know about javelin throw.”

However, her honesty led to trolls on social media, with some users even labelling her as the ‘Kangana Ranaut of sports’ and 'Smriti Irani of sports'.

Saina was quick to hit back at her critics, especially to those making the Kangana Ranaut reference.

Taking to X, she said, ‘Thanks for the compliment.. Kangana is beautiful…but I had to be perfect in my sport and I proudly achieved world number 1 and Olympic medal in badminton for my country …again I will say this ghar pe bait ke comment karna easy hai and sports khelna difficult (sitting at home and commenting is easy but playing sports isn’t). Neeraj is our super star and he made the sport so popular in India.’

This isn’t the first time Saina has faced social media backlash. She previously found herself under fire over a comment regarding Indian cricketer Jasprit Bumrah.

Kolkata Knight Riders batter Angkrish Raghuvanshi had criticised Saina after she drew an inference between cricket and badminton. In response, she had said, “Why would I face Jasprit Bumrah anyways? If I had been playing for 8 years maybe I would have answered Jasprit Bumrah.

“If Jasprit Bumrah plays badminton with me maybe he won’t be able to take my smash. We should not fight with ourselves in our own country for these things. That’s what I want to say (earlier). Every sport is best in its place. But I want to say, give value to other sport as well. Otherwise, where will we get sporting culture from? And cricket, Bollywood will always be our focus.”