Indian Neeraj Chopra takes gold in the Olympics for javelin throwing

Neeraj Chopra, a 23-year-old javelin thrower from India won a Gold medal at Tokyo Olympics on August, 4. His winning throw was his second attempt and equaled 87.58 meters (the first one was 87.03 meters, and the third one ‒ 76.79 meters), which guaranteed him being the second individual Indian athlete to have become an Olympic champion after Abhinav Bindra.

This gold medal is also the first India medal in track-and-field events in Olympics. In general, it is India’s seventh Olympic medal. Previously, six medals were won during London 2012, but there were no gold medals before.

The silver medal was taken by Jakub Vadlejch from the Czech Republic and the bronze medal – by Vitezslav Vesely, a Czech too.

The President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind congratulated Neeraj Chopra on his Twitter. He told the athlete broke barriers and created history, inspiring youth.

The Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi posted on his Twitter that Neeraj Chopra’s achievement would be remembered forever. He appreciated the athlete’s performance and passion.

The Sports Minister of India Shri Anurag Thakur in his tweet called Neeraj Chopra a golden boy, told he deserved a billion cheers and assumed Chopra’s name would be written in history books with golden letters.

Shortly after this joyful event, Chopra shared that it was his first Olympics and he felt very good. He admitted he had not done so well in the warm-up but in the qualifying round his throw had been perfect due to the right angle.

However, the young star understands finals will be a totally different experience. All the athletes have got a good physical preparation. Chopra believes he has to prepare mentally as well and concentrate on the throw itself, trying to perfect it.

Neeraj Chopra was born in Haryana’s Khandra village. When he was 12 years old, Chopra had problems with keeping fit and his family persisted in his doing sports. Yet, the boy became really into sports after he saw some athletes throwing javelins at the stadium. This was a turning point in the boy’s life, after which he started seriously practicing javelin throwing.

It is not Chopra’s first gold medal. He took gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, the 2018 Asian Games, the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships, the 2016 World U-20 Athletics Championships, and the 2016 South Asian Games.

In the Olympics, the sportsman had better results than the world champion of 2017 Johannes Vetter, Germany, who had previously claimed it would be hard for Chopra to beat him in the Olympics. Vetter’s best throw was 85.64 meters, though earlier this year he showed results of more than 90-meter throws.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the preparation for the Olympics was tough for Chopra and other athletes who were ready for the competition last year, but then it all stopped. Before the Olympic Games, Chopra had only three international events to prepare, yet he was practicing really hard, preparing his mind and body.

The men’s javelin contest was the final one for India in the Summer Games, that is to say, India had a gold finish.