Lausanne Diamond League: Neeraj Chopra mindful & aiming for sky
CHENNAI: On August 8, Neeraj Chopra won his second Olympic medal in front of a packed crowd at Stade de France during the Paris Olympics. In less than two weeks, India's Javelin star has put that medal aside to start preparing for the next challenge in the capital of Switzerland.
A victory parade for one of the most decorated track and field athletes can wait for now as he plans to participate in the Lausanne Diamond League before taking a well-deserved break.
"Initially, I was thinking I would participate in the Zurich Diamond League (5 September) and then the final one in Brussels (13-14 September). However, I and the team have decided to participate in the Lausanne Diamond League (August 22)," Chopra told reporters in a media interaction from Switzerland.
While Chopra gave his season-best in Paris to win a silver medal despite carrying a groin injury, he is keen to complete the season before consulting with the doctors for surgery.
"Luckily, the injury was under control in Paris. And we thought just like the previous season during the Tokyo Olympics, we would continue with the season instead of coming to India. The final decision about the treatment will happen once I talk with doctors after the season. There is one month left in the season, so I plan to communicate with doctors once I have some free time. I plan to come to India at the end of September."
When asked about what was going through his mind during the Games, especially after his Pakistani counterpart, Arshad Nadeem landed a 92.97 m throw, Chopra candidly opened up about how at no point he thought that the target was not achievable.
"At no point, I thought, I could not do better. In Javelin, if you are throwing well, you can achieve that extra 3-4 metres. If we talk about Arshad Nadeem, his last personal best was 90.18 m which happened in the Commonwealth Games. And mine was 89.94 m. His throw went ahead and it wasn't the case that I could not have done that but somewhere I could not push myself.”
“The legwork needed on the runway was not there. My second throw was around the same time when Nadeem threw his best one. At that time, I was positive and that's how my throw came in but after that somehow I was not able to push myself. If your legwork and technique are not spot on, you cannot throw at your best no matter how much you try," the 26-year-old mentioned.
While Nadeem and many other competitors of Chopra have been able to cross the 90 m mark, that number has been beyond his reach even though he has talked about not thinking about it on many occasions. Moving forward, his focus is to remain injury-free and work more on his technique.
"If I want to increase the distance from here, I have to remain injury-free. In my mind, I want to give my 100% best while throwing but because the injury has been going on, I could not give my 100% best. Somewhere my mind and body were holding me back there. There is some hesitation and I want to work on that first. Throwing sessions are the most important in javelin and I was not able to do many of these in the lead-up. It will take some time to go back to normal. Once that happens, I think, the technique will be better and I can cover more distance," Chopra noted.
The groin injury that held Chopra back surfaced at the start of the season in 2023 ahead of the Doha Diamond League where he was advised to undergo the surgery. However, Chopra and his team decided to continue competing with the Paris Games in mind.
"When I went to Doha (May 2023), doctors had asked me to perform surgery, when it was just a few months before the World Championship (August 2023). I wanted to win that World Championship gold and my preparation for that was going so well. The biggest issue with the groin injury is that you don't know when the pain will start. We didn't go ahead with the surgery because the entire cycle would have passed for me without the World Championship and we were not sure how much recovery would have been possible for the Olympics. So that's why we decided to play safe. We thought we would decide about surgery after the Olympics," Chopra explained.
After participating in his second Olympic Games, Chopra also spoke about the changes he had seen in fellow Indian athletes at the Olympic level. He argued that even though the medals might not show it, his fellow athletes have shown immense improvement over the years and the country's best is yet to come.
"Our athletes were fighting against some of the best athletes in the world. We have to stay mentally strong if we are to compete at these levels. I met Lakshya (Sen) and other young athletes and they were fearless. I know with the number of medals we have less compared to the previous one but if Vinesh (Phogat) had won her medal, we would have been in a better place. And I think we had more fourth place finishes than Tokyo this time around,” he said.
“Hopefully, the next time, all the fourth finishes get converted into medals and all the bronze or silver medal finishes make it to gold. Our athletes have performed well over the years and someday, one of these athletes will win us medals. We need more people who can spot the talent of our athletes and a few more coaches," he signed off.