A RevSportz Exclusive
Kishore Kumar Jena, the Indian javelin star, took the world by storm at the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023, with back-to-back 85m plus throws. He secured a silver medal, marked his personal best of 87.54m and booked a Paris Olympics 2024 berth.
Jena participated in the Budapest World Championship in August, where he came 5th. At the Doha Diamond League, in May, he finished ninth with a best throw of 76.31 meters, which was more than 11 metres below his personal best. Earlier this month, Jena again was far from his personal best, where he marked 78.10m and came 8th in the Paris Diamond League.
Jena who will take the field again in Paris in August, spoke about his last few meets, his preparations ahead of the Olympics, his conversations with Neeraj Chopra and more in this exclusive conversation with RevSportz.
“I thought of giving maximum load in these competitions and see how far I can go. I was thinking of achieving 82m plus, but that didn’t happen.” Jena had a minor injury scare which now seems to be under control. “I had a niggle in my ankle due to which I struggled a bit. It is fine now and hopefully, the next competition will be better”, added Jena.
With every mistake committed, one takes lessons and tries to better the next effort. Jena, who just finished his training before this interview, said,” We learn from each mistake we commit. I was constantly touching 82m in the training and felt confident. Whatever mistakes were committed, I have taken note and with god’s grace, the next competition will be injury-free and I will perform well.”
“I am not feeling so much pressure on the Olympics name tag. The pressure was to be fully fit, because the last few competitions were not that great for me. Now I feel confident for Paris, and the injury is not there”, affirmed Jena.
Talking of mental health and his way of maintaining it, Jena said there isn’t much time for him to focus on something else other than javelin. “My day-to-day life is almost the same. Wake up, have breakfast, train, come back, have lunch, take rest, then go back to training and repeat. This is pretty much my everyday routine.”
The final preparations ahead of the Paris Olympics – “Well, as I said, my preparations were going fine, until that injury which affected my competitions. When you don’t have an injury issue, you can focus a lot more on the performance.”
“The final few weeks I will stick to the basics and try to improve upon them. I will work on my technique as well”, added the athlete.
“After the competitions, I did talk to Neeraj, and we exchanged opinions on the performance. It was quite helpful”, said Jena in praise of his compatriot.
Jena praised the support he has received from Reliance Foundation Youth Sports (RFYS) – “RFYS have helped me a lot. I have been a part of RFYS since 2018 and every aspect – training, rehabs, diets, nutrition and even sports science and psychology, have been covered.”
Thanks to RFYS for facilitating this interview.
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