Bharath in Bengaluru
Somewhere in the future, while sitting on a rocking chair, you might end up reminiscing about ‘I was there’ moments. Memories that stay with you for a lifetime. India’s sporting legend, Neeraj Chopra, coming over to Bengaluru and participating in the Neeraj Chopra Classic could be one of them. After all, here is a sportsman who has inspired thousands of athletes to take up Track and Field as a profession with his achievements in the javelin.
There is something else about Neeraj that stands out – His down-to-earth nature. That kind of warmth could be observed when he met an elderly fan while taking a stroll through a rather quiet street in Bengaluru. Neeraj ended up exchanging pleasantries and allowed the fan to click a photo with him.
For yours truly, evocative memories gushed forth while witnessing Neeraj share his experiences at the press meet ahead of the competition. Aeons ago, in 2015, at the All-India Inter-University Athletics competition, Neeraj had broken the then World Junior record with a throw of 81.04 m. And one had read about that landmark via the good, old newspaper.
The very next year, Neeraj took home the Gold at the World Junior Championships with another world-record throw. He hasn’t looked back since, winning medals and pole position at the Olympics, World Championships, Diamond League Finals, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, Asian Championships, South Asian Games and more.
The unforgettable memory among the lot will still be his gold-medal winning effort in Tokyo. From an Indian point of view, to watch Neeraj clinching Olympic gold on TV brought a few tears of joy. Here was a country that hadn’t won a single medal at the Olympics in track-and-field events since its independence, before Neeraj’s stunning performance.
That sterling effort in Tokyo seems to have changed the narrative as far as Indian athletics is concerned. It appears to have given belief to Indian athletes that they too can compete and bring home medals at the world level. For a moment, let’s stick to javelin. All of India’s top 10 throws in the men’s javelin have come in the last 10 years. It is not a mere coincidence that it is the same timeframe when Neeraj emerged as a world-class athlete.
Just zoom through the entry list of the NC Classic, and one can notice five Indians. It includes the promising Sachin Yadav, who narrowly missed out on collecting the gold medal at the Asian Athletics Championships, losing out to the current Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem.
The very athlete who has turned out to be a colossal sporting icon of the country is set to galvanise many more kids to take up some kind of sporting activity by throwing the javelin over long distances at the NC Classic. And it would be a proud moment for all the Bengalureans to watch the man from Khandra at the Kanteerava Stadium.