India’s javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra revealed his injury after winning a silver medal at the Olympics, saying he may have to undergo surgery soon after training so hard to compete. Neeraj has been struggling with a problem in the inner thigh muscle (adductor) before the Paris Games. However, he won the silver medal on Thursday with his season’s best effort of 89.45 metres. He became the first track and field athlete from India to win two Olympic medals. He won the gold medal in Tokyo Olympics.
Neeraj finished behind Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, who won the gold medal with an Olympic record throw of 92.97 metres. With this, Nadeem became Pakistan’s first individual Olympic gold medalist. Neeraj said, “A lot was going on in my mind. When I’m throwing, 60-70 percent of my focus is on the injury. I didn’t want to get hurt. Whenever I was going to throw, you would have seen that my speed was less.
“The doctor had already told me to undergo surgery but I did not have that much time before or after the World Championships,” he said, referring to the 2023 World Championships. It takes a lot of time to prepare for the Olympics.” Neeraj had won the gold medal in this World Championship.
Despite not being in his best form, Neeraj became the third Indian to win medals in two consecutive Olympics. Before him, Sushil Kumar (wrestling) and PV Sindhu (badminton) have achieved this feat.
Neeraj said in a disappointed tone, “I am still continuing with it.” He said, “This is not a good situation in the game. If you want a long career then you have to stay fit and healthy. Because of this level of competition, many times you cannot take decisions. Now we will work on it and also improve the technology.” He said that he will ‘take a decision’ after discussing this issue with his team.
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He also told how difficult the last seven years have been for him in terms of fitness. “I felt this pain in 2017,” he said. After that I underwent a lot of treatment. But for this I will have to take a big decision.” Without mentioning the distance of 90 meters, Neeraj said that he has the ability to make bigger throws. Neeraj’s best performance came in 2022 when he achieved a distance of 89.94 metres.
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He said, “I covered a good distance in 2016 and then in 2018 I had a throw of 88 meters in the Asian Games. After that I feel I can improve a lot in it. So, until that happens, I will continue this effort. I want to tell you that I have a lot of potential.
