NEW DELHI: Neeraj Chopra returned home to India a national hero after winning Olympic javelin gold in 2021 but the farmer’s son has never forgotten his humble roots. The 26-year-old will defend his title in Paris, having made history in Tokyo three years ago with India’s first Olympic track and field gold ever.

In a nation that usually only hails cricket players as heroes, boys and girls in rural India were seen hurling wooden sticks as javelins in the aftermath. Chopra then added the world title to his Olympic feat, and he is also a two-time Asian Games champion and a Commonwealth Games gold medallist.

“Every moment you train is an opportunity to surpass the greatest you’ve been,” he wrote this year on social media, detailing his gruelling preparation schedule for the Paris Games, which start on July 26. “There is a saying that throwers have no finish line. The best thing is that we have our javelin. We can always push ourselves,” Chopra said after winning world championship gold in 2023. “I may have won a lot of medals but the motivation is to throw farther and farther. “I am hungry for more.”

Man of the people’

Chopra’s personal best is 89.94m, made in 2022, but he has been eyeing a throw of over 90m. He may need that if he is to retain his Olympic title. Of his rivals, Germany’s Max Dehning threw 90.20m in February.

The world record remains the massive 98.48m by legendary Czech athlete Jan Zelezny in 1996. Much is expected of Chopra back home. After his 2021 gold he was soon swamped with million-dollar endorsements and a rush of TV advertisements looking to bank in on his success.

India’s only previous medals in Olympic track and field were before independence - two silvers won by Norman Pritchard in the 200 metres and the 200-metre hurdles at Paris in 1900. But the village boy has remained modest, say people who know him well.

“Being an Olympic champion has not got into his head,” Chopra’s biographer Norris Pritam told AFP. “He is one superstar from the sports world in India who is down to earth, he is a man of the people.”

‘Super, superstar’

Chopra played cricket and volleyball in his pre-teen years before he took to javelin. His father and uncles bought him his first steel javelin. “He started javelin because he thought it flies like a plane,” Pritam said, adding that he was at heart unchanged from that boy hurling his javelin across the farming fields at home.

“He hails from a modest village family where he did not have access to luxury cars,” he said. “Now he has cars and a luxury house, but that modesty is ingrained in his blood,” Pritam added. “He is already a superstar, but if he wins again he will be a super, superstar—and he knows it. That’s why he keeps training.”

Chopra built on his breakout success in Tokyo by winning world championship gold. He began this year with a second-placed finish at the Doha Diamond League after a throw of 88.36m, just two centimetres behind winner Jakub Vadlejch.

The Czech athlete took silver behind Chopra in Tokyo and will be one of his main rivals once more in the French capital. Most recently Chopra triumphed at a meeting in Turku, Finland, where Vadlejch did not compete. Dehning and his fellow German Julian Weber, and Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan, are also strong contenders in Paris. – AFP