CHENNAI: The words Klaus Bartonietz utters are usually laced with positivity and hope. He is more like a motivational speaker than a coach and at times seems oblivious to the pressure of expectations on one of the biggest stars in India at the moment — Neeraj Chopra. This calmness comes as a boon to him and his ward. A day after Neeraj won the World Championships gold in Budapest, he sounded relaxed as always. Despite all the hype and hoopla he felt it will be good for Neeraj to enjoy the sport.
The German bio-mechanic expert dissected the season quite meticulously and says big throws (including 90m) are possible. But he believes Neeraj should not be put under too much pressure and talk about only medals. He feels if Neeraj enjoys the sport he will reach the ‘moon’ (alluding to Chandrayaan-3 landing). The coach gets deeply philosophical while describing how easy (or difficult) it is to motivate Neeraj, who has won almost everything that the sport can could offer. “It is not difficult to motivate him. He is already motivated. I mean it is his life. How to motivate him to live?” said the coach
And on the Worlds performance, he said it was great. “In the qualification, execution was very good. One throw bang-bang 88.77m,” he told this daily from Budapest. “You have a day’s gap and the pressure increases. Then the first throw was around 79m, he was not too happy and he came back in the second throw. The reason is that the season was very good until Doha (Diamond League) but after Doha, he got a groin injury. That changed the training. A lot of physio work has to be done. There was not so much throwing, lifting was okay but not throwing.”
The coach threw some light on the workout regimen after the injury especially after Doha where he threw 88.67m a trifle short of what he did at the Worlds qualification and 90m was on the radar. “As I said, there was more physiotherapeutic training, visiting the doctors getting advice, physical training but not so much throwing because of the specific load stress on that area,” he said. “We were doing the best (technical adaptation)… What he has shown in the high 88s and in the qualification here that was technically very good.”
The coach also explained what the athlete and the team do during the gap between the qualification and the final. He said that during the break they don’t talk too much about the final. “One has to keep the system active and keep the brain going. So we had a short session the day in the afternoon on the track. Some sprints, jump very, very fast, a bit of lifting. Mentally, not talking too much about this to avoid giving additional pressure. What do you do? Because if you have to perform well physically, it's also about good mental work.”
“You should not put too much pressure. You won the Asian Games, the Olympics, World Championships. Now let him also enjoy the sport. When you enjoy then you can excel,” said Klaus. “You saw how pressure is acting. There were athletes like the girl from Latvia in the final. She said she was not feeling relaxed anymore. Even Jakub (Vadlejch) was throwing 90m in Turkey while we were training there. Here he could not (finished third). When the brain is not helping it's difficult.”
On three Indian throwers in the final, Klaus said it was great. “Kishore Jena threw his personal best and was close to the podium and DP Manu also did well,” he said. This he says shows that the sport is doing well in the country. There is a huge influence from Neeraj definitely, but the coach felt the support system too is working out well. “The government, Sports Authority of India, the Athletic Federation of India and even the private sector and Army are supporting. Manu trains in the Army centre and Jena with Reliance (sometimes). The government and private sectors are providing support to athletes. The AFI, SAI and JSW Sports are working together to provide athletes what they need. I think no country in the world provides such support to their athletes as India does at the moment.”
As of now, the coach is focused on the Asian Games and maybe the Diamond League in Eugene but the team has yet to take a call. The AFI too will take a call on this. But after the Asian Games, there definitely will be a break before assembling in India. With the Olympics less than a year away, the break will be short, about a month, and after beginning to train in India they might shift to South Africa. As of now, though, they will shift their training base to Switzerland where they trained before Lausanne DL.