Tokyo Olympics – Gold. World Championships – Gold and Silver. Diamond League finals – First place. Asian Games – Gold. Commonwealth Games – Gold. Asian Championships – Gold. South Asian Games – Gold. World Junior Championships – Gold.
Neeraj Chopra is just 25 and his cabinet is already full of medals and accolades. Yet, he seems to have the insatiable hunger to improve by percentages and fractions. In that context, India’s ‘Golden Boy’ would be looking to repeat his feat from last year, in the Diamond League finals, in Eugene.
The starting list for the event looks quite formidable – Oliver Helander, Andrian Mardare, Anderson Peters, Curtis Thomspon and Jakub Vadlejch. In fact, the ever-consistent Vadlejch has the best throw this season – 89.51 m. Helander has the 6th best throw this season, and his personal best stands at an impressive 89.83 m. Neeraj himself has the second best throw this season at 88.77 m, which helped him win the Gold in this year’s World Championships.
The hallmark of Neeraj has been his sheer consistency – Since the start of 2022, he hasn’t finished any of the events with a best throw that is less than 85.71 m. And that throw of 85.71 m came in his previous event – Zurich Diamond League.
He began the current season on the right note with throws of 88.67 m in Doha and 88.17 m in the World Championships. His efforts are praiseworthy as he won Gold at the World Championships after returning from an injury, which in turn meant that he had to withdraw from FBK games. He has done that before too – Neeraj quite easily cleared the Tokyo Olympics Games’ qualifying mark of 85 m with a throw of 87.86 m after returning from a serious elbow injury.
With Neeraj continuing his winning streak, the expectations have got higher. As Neeraj said to RevSportz after taking home the Gold Medal at World Championships. “There, I didn’t have much pressure, I was a Commonwealth and Asian Games Gold Medallist. But here, so many people were following. I was playing as an Olympic Champion, that thing would be there inside your mind, that I have to win here as well.”
When the clock strikes 12.50 AM, on September 17, thousands of drowsy fans from India would again be glued to their television sets or streaming Neeraj’s event. Hopefully, Neeraj would once more bring cheers on the faces of millions of Indians.