Who is Neeraj Chopra?

Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, who made history on August 7, 2021 by winning India's first-ever gold medal in athletics at the Tokyo Olympics, was born on December 24, 1997 to a family of farmers from Khandra village near Panipat in Haryana. He graduated from Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College in Chandigarh.

 

His mother Saroj Devi is a housewife and father Satish Kumar is a farmer. Since he was overweight, Chopra was always persuaded by his family to take up sports. Later, he decided to try his luck at javelin throw and started training at the Shivaji Stadium in Panipat.

After training for a year, the 23-year-old was admitted to the Tau Devi Lal Sports Complex in Panchkula where his coach Naseem Ahmad made him train in the long-distance running along with the javelin throw.

 

By the end of 2012, Neeraj Chopra became the U-16 national champion. In 2014, he won the first-ever international medal (silver) in the Youth Olympics Qualification in Bangkok. In 2015, he received his first medal in a national senior championship during the Inter-State event in Chennai with a throw of 77.33 metres.

 

A few months later, he won gold in the National Open Championships in Kolkata. The year 2016 was a breakthrough for Neeraj Chopra as he bagged a gold medal at the South Asian Games in Guwahati with a throw of 82.23m.

 

He further improved his skills under the guidance of Uwe Hohn, Gary Calvert, and Werner Daniels.

 

Impressed with his performance at several national and international tournaments, the Indian Army decided to make him a Junior Commission Officer in 2017. He was offered a direct appointment as a Junior Commissioned Officer in the Rajputana Rifles with the rank of 'Naib Subedar'.

 

After joining the Army, Chopra got selected for training at the 'Mission Olympics Wing' as well as at the Army Sports Institute in Pune. The Mission Olympics Wing is an initiative by the Indian Army to identify and train promising sportspersons in 11 disciplines for various national and international competitions.

 

In 2018, he won the gold medal in Commonwealth Games with a season-best effort of 86.47 metres and threw his personal best of 87.43m at the Diamond League in Doha in the same year. On August 27, Neeraj clinched gold at the Asian Games with a throw of 88.06 metres. The athlete was out of action for eight months in 2019 due to an elbow injury.

On August 7, 2021, Neeraj Chopra emerged as India's first track-and-field Olympic gold-medallist. He gave his best throw of 87.58m in his second attempt to clinch the gold medal for India at Tokyo Olympic Games. He is now the second Indian after Abhinav Bindra to win a gold medal in individual events.

 

He was qualified for the Tokyo Olympics with a throw of 87.86m at the ACNE League. He breached the Olympic qualification mark of 85m in his fourth attempt and secured the top place at the international event.

 

He threw the spear to 81.76m in the beginning and improved after every throw. He could manage a throw of 82m in his second attempt and 82.57 in the third.

In 2018, Neeraj Chopra was conferred with the Arjuna Award and Vishist Seva Medal (VSM) in 2020 for his excellence in sports.