Indian double Olympics medallist Neeraj Chopra came back to India after clinching a silver medal in the Paris Games 2024 and a remarkable Diamond League (DL) final performance. Notably, India's Neeraj is the only athlete who managed to win a silver medal in the marquee event that happened in Paris where India clinched six medals including five bronze and one silver.
Neeraj is India's first Indian track-and-field athlete to claim two successive Olympic medals. Chopra struggled with an adductor muscle issue throughout the year, which impacted his performance at both the Olympics and the DL finale. Despite these challenges, he competed with remarkable resilience, even dealing with a fractured left hand.
"The season is over now. The biggest target for next year is the World Championship, and we will begin preparations for that now. The Olympics are always on our minds, but we have four years for that," Neeraj told PTI Videos on the sidelines of a conference on 'Mission Olympics 2036' organised at the Sports University of Haryana here.
The world championship is scheduled to be held from September 13 to 21 next year.
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Asked about his fitness, Chopra played down concerns and also stated that he will look to improve his technique. The Haryana-lad is trained by renowned German biomechanics expert Klaus Bartonietz.
"It was an injury-plagued year but injury is fine now, I will be 100 per cent fit for the new season. Technical issues are also there but we will work on them. I will look to improve my technique. I do like to train in India but when competitions start, I prefer to train abroad," he said.
Reflecting on India's Olympic performance, which yielded six medals but no gold this time, Chopra pointed out that the country could have got more as reflected by the half a dozen fourth place finishes.
"There were a lot of fourth positions. (But) this time, we had a very good performance in the Paralympics and won several medals.
"In the coming times, we expect strong performances in both the Olympics and the Paralympics," said Chopra.
Chopra has been working hard to hit the 90m mark but hasn't managed so far despite coming close. In the Paris Olympics, his silver-winning throw was 89.45m and he was bested by Pakistan's Arshad Nadeem, who broke the Games record with a 92.97m effort. At the DL finale, Chopra threw 87.86m to miss the top finish by just one centimetre.
With PTI Inputs
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