Neeraj Chopra and the Art of Dealing with Pressure could well become the keynote address for the Indian squad in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest when the affable Olympic Games gold medalist competes in the men’s Javelin Throw qualifying round on Friday. Over the past few years, he has admirably embraced pressure as an invisible and inevitable companion.
Even as many top guns from India misfired in Budapest for one reason or the other and led to intense debates on mental strength of the country’s elite track and field exponent, even a mere mention of Neeraj Chopra brings a sense of calm and comfort. Yet, he is not the kind who would take things easy, aware as he is that he has to show up and nail qualification at the earliest.
While Neeraj Chopra has earned the respect of his competitors around the world, DP Manu and Kishore Kumar Jena will have to control their nerves in their maiden appearance in the World Championships. The trio can alter of the nature of the growing chatter by being the first men from India match their potential and promise with performance in Budapest.
Manu and Kishore Kumar Jena have both thrown over 84m at home and realise that they need to deliver similar efforts on the big stage. They will have three throws each on Friday morning to punch tickets to the final on Sunday with their best efforts in a competition in which five are already members of the 90m club. And none of them answers to the call of Neeraj Chopra.
There was hope that Jeswin Aldrin would find that one big jump on Thursday night and cause a flutter among the big names, but those remained unfulfilled as he did not have an answer to the pressure that came to bear on him after a foul on the first jump. Jeswin Aldrin ran hard but, for some inexplicable reason, slipped during take-off.
By his own admission, he did not recover his composure or his rhythm to be able to nail a big jump on his second try. It led to another foul and left him with having to jump beyond 7.94m to earn himself three more jumps given to the top eight in the field at the halfway stage. It is a distance he has been quite familiar with this season but the lack of rhythm showed.
In the event, he managed 7.77m, his second lowest mark in a competition in 13 months since he made his World Championships debut in Eugene last year. That distance was never going to be enough for him to rise from 11th place to the top eight and he was soon making his way out of the National Athletic Centre via the Mixed Zone.
He carried his backpack and some valuable lessons. “There are no excuses. I just lost my rhythm after the first jump,” he said. “It has never happened to me before. I tried to get it back but was unable to. I was grateful that nothing major happened but that put pressure on me after that. The speed and the take-off were not there,” he said.
“Even on the last jump, I wanted to go 100 per cent but my body did not react (to such promptings),” he said. “I see it as a big lesson and experience. I need to build my confidence and give it everything. I cannot be (very) disappointed, but it hurts that I trained for this over so many months but was not able to execute it properly… It hurts.
Not much later, there was a veritable display of mental toughness by the Olympic gold medalist Miltaidis Tentoglou (Greece) who reversed the men’s Long Jump script from last year. Back in Eugene, the Greek was beaten on the final jump by China’s Wang Jianan, but on Thursday, he turned the table with an 8.52m leap on his last try to edge out Jamaica’s Wayne Pinnock.
Even as Camryn Rogers (Canada) produced the four best efforts of the evening to win the women’s Hammer Throw, the United States of America’s DeAnna Price exhibited the art of dealing with pressure after her first two throws were penned down as no-marks. She fought back with her third try to be seventh at the halfway stage and produced a good throw to claim bronze.
Antonio Watson (Jamaica) produced a great run in the second half of the men’s 400m final, rising from eighth place to win gold, sheer will power driving him past his flagging competitors, Femke Bol (Netherlands) kept her date with the women’s 400m Hurdles crown in Sydney McLauglin’s absence, Danielle Williams added another 100m Hurdles gold to the one she won in 2019.
Spaniards Alvaro Martin and Maria Perez picked up the men and women’s 35km Race Walk titles, both completing the double after they had won the 20km Race Walk gold medals five days ago.
The results (finals and Indians):
Men
400m: 1. Antonio Watson (Jamaica) 44.22 seconds; 2. Matthew Hudson-Smith (Great Britain) 44.31; 3. Quincy Hall (United States of America) 44.37.
Long Jump: 1. Miltaidis Tentoglou (Greece) 8.52m; 2. Wayne Pinnock (Jamaica) 8.50; 3. Tajay Gayle (Jamaica) 8.27; 11. Jeswin Aldrin 7.77.
35km Race Walk: 1. Alvaro Martin (Spain) 2:24:40; 2. Brian Daniel Pintado (Ecuador) 2:24:34; 3. Masatora Kawano (Japan) 2:25:12; 27: Ram Baboo 2:39:07.
Women
100m Hurdles: 1. Danielle Williams (Jamaica) 12.43 seconds; 2. Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (Puerto Rico) 12.44; 3. Kendra Harrison (USA) 12.46.
400m Hurdles: 1. Femke Bol (Netherlands) 51.70 seconds; 2. Shamier Little (USA) 52.80; 3. Rushell Clayton (Jamaica) 52.81.
Hammer Throw: 1. Camryn Rogers (Canada) 77.22 seconds; 2. Janee Kassanavoid (United States of America) 76.36; 3. DeAnna Price (United States of America) 75.41.
35km Race Walk: 1. Maria Perez (Spian) 2:38:40 (New Championship Record. Old: 2:39:16, Kimberly Garcia Leon, Peru, Eugene, 2022); 2. Kimberly Garcia Leon (Peru) 2:40:52; 3. Antigoni Ntrismpioti (Greece) 2:43:22.