Neeraj basks in attention, eyes world title, 90m mark
NEW DELHI: Neeraj Chopra has held a medal-starved nation enthralled since delivering a double delight—landing the javelin gold on Saturday to make up for the almost endless wait for a medal of any hue to Olympic track and field competitions.
A day after landing home to a grand welcome, the 23-year-old set out fresh targets at a felicitation organised by the Athletics Federation of India at a city hotel. Also present on stage were the men’s 4x400m relay team that bettered the Asian mark in Tokyo and Kamalpreet Kaur, who came sixth in the discus throw final.
Chopra, whose winning throw was 87.58m—his national record stands at 88.07m—wants to hurl the spear to the 90m mark and add the world championships title at Eugene, Oregon next year, to complete a great set of gold medals. The 2016 youth world champion is already the Asian
Games and CWG champion.
“My next target is winning gold in the world championships,” he said. “The world championships is big, sometimes tougher than Olympics. I am not going to be content with this gold. I would like to do even better and win gold again in Asian Games, CWG and again in Olympics.”
“The 90m mark is my dream and I will have to work with my coach (German bio-mechanics expert Klaus Bartonietz) to achieve that. I wanted to do it this year but the Olympic gold is there, the most important thing,” he said. Chopra said he will have to tweak the angle of his release if he is to achieve the 90m throw.
Chopra said he wants to emulate long jumper Anju Bobby George, the only Indian to have won a world championships medal. A national selector and AFI vice-president, George won bronze at the 2003 Paris.
He thanked the federation for selecting him to the national camp in 2015 though he had finished only fifth in the national meet. He was guided by Australia’s late Gary Calvert and then by German legend Uwe Hohn, India’s other javelin coach, before declining to continue under him and shifting to train with Bartonietz. “I respect Hohn sir, I won gold in the 2018 Asian Games and CWG under him. But his technical approach and style of training was different. I told him I want to work with Klaus sir. His training plans were good and suited me. He plans training according to the body of the athlete,” Chopra said.
George, who came fifth in 2004 Athens despite bettering her national mark with 6.83m, hailed Chopra. “A world championship or Olympic medal is great; we are competing against multiple opponents and 216 countries, so the value is more. The talk was that in athletics getting a medal is not that easy, but now it is gold from Olympics, beyond that what can we ask or expect? Our chances are bright,” she said.