India’s Olympic hero Neeraj Chopra on Friday turned 24, months after winning a historic gold medal for the country at the Tokyo Olympics. Wishes poured in for the Panipat youngster, who dared to dream and chased glory successfully at the highest level.
Neeraj Chopra responded to fans and fellow athletes who wished him on the special day. Interestingly, Neeraj has been training in the USA and the superstar athlete pointed out that it was not yet his birthday according to the local time. Neeraj was seen having dinner with his coach, Klaus Bartonietz, at their hotel room.
“Namaste, Bohot Bohot Dhanyawaad (Hi, thank you very much). I just came back from training. Here in USA, we are 12-13 hours behind Indian time but I saw people have wished me. Thank you very much,” he said.
Neeraj has been training at the Chula Vista Elita Training Center in California, USA, gearing up for the Athletics World Championships in July 2022 and the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games.
Neeraj gave a nation of billion and more one of its greatest sporting moments as he won the gold in men’s javelin at the Tokyo Olympics. Neeraj was excepted to medal at the biggest sporting spectacle, which was postponed to 2021, but he blew away th rest of the field and won the elusive gold medal with ease that is a rarity from Indian athletes.
Neeraj Chopra was regarded as one of India’s brightest medal prospects for Tokyo Olympics. He shot into the limelight when he set a new world junior record in 2016. Ever since, Neeraj has only bettered his achievements, winning the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games gold medals in 2018. Neeraj’s consistency made the world sit up and take notice of the Indian star and he delivered on the biggest stages of the sport, blowing away the Men’s Javelin field at the Tokyo Olympics.
Neeraj Chopra’s calm demeanour and swag was on display at the Tokyo Olympics. In the qualification round, all Neeraj needed was just one throw. He landed his spear at 86.65m and topped the qualifying round. He saw the spear soar into the sky, land over the automatic qualification mark after which he packed his bags and left.
Neeraj took the spear, warmed up and ran down the lane for an even better throw of 87.58m in his 2nd attempt. The moment Neeraj let the Javelin fly out of his hand, he raised his arms in celebration. He knew he had done something special. The body language did tell the story.
