Neeraj Chopra reveals next target after winning Olympics gold
Athlete Neeraj Chopra, who won India’s first gold in Javelin throw, answered questions of the press via video conference on Saturday night and told the mantra of his victory. He said that ‘I had already thought that my first throw should be the best. When the first throw is good, the pressure comes on the other players.’
Next Target: 90 meters
He said that ‘like the German athlete Johannes Vetter’s world performance has been good, but he has not been able to perform as well in today’s game. I am sad that a world level player has lost like this’. He said that ‘it would take me a long time to reach him (Vetter), but I don’t want to say anything on it. I just thought about giving my best. Now I will work harder and try to make 90 meters record. For the unversed Vetter had 16 throws of over 90 meters this year and everyone had expected him and Neeraj to fight for the gold. But as luck would have it the German finished 9th after 3 throws and couldn’t make it to the next round.
Javelin throw is a game of technique
Neeraj told that Javelin is a technical event. If there is a slight technique wrong in this, then the game gets spoiled. It was very important to be focused for this. He told that he did a lot of workouts following the coach’s advice. He kept his full focus on his training. The gold he got today is the result of years of hard work.
On getting gold for the first time in athletics, he said that gold has been coming in our country in all sports. Gold has been coming in hockey too, but in athletics, at the world level, our players used to miss by a small margin. Now it was necessary to win gold. The medal coming will help in furthering athletics and javelin in India.
There was no pressure before the game
Neeraj said that ‘I had in my mind that till now not a single gold came (at the Tokyo Olympics) in the country and the last game was mine, but there was no pressure on me. Especially when I am in my runup carrying a javelin, all these things are not on my mind. My focus is only on my game.’
Neeraj put on a dominating performance in the qualifying rounds, making the finals with just a solitary throw. The 23 year old then went on to throw the longest in the finals to win the first Gold medal in Javelin and Athletics for India.
