Picture Credit: Instagram
India cannot keep calm now that they have a gold medal in track and field events at the Olympics. While the country had no medal in over 100 years until the evening of August 7, 23-year-old Neeraj Chopra ended the country's drought not with a bronze or silver but gold. Understandably, the nation has showered all its love and appreciation on their star javelin thrower whose 87.58 m throw won him the gold.
In fact, so overwhelming has been the last few hours for Chopra and the country that he has gained well over a million followers in less than 24 hours of his gold medal-winning effort. While his Instagram profile had some 100 thousand followers at the time the Men's Javelin throw final at Tokyo 2020, the last event of an Indian athlete at these games, was underway, he now has over 2.2 M followers on his profile.
The love can also be gauged from the fact that it is raining awards on the golden boy from Haryana. The Haryana government announced an INR 6 crore cash prize and a Class-I government job for the gold medallist soon after his throw at these games. Moreover, he has also been promised land at 50 per cent concession rate anywhere in the state.
Long list of cash prizes and gifts for Neeraj
Apart from the Haryana government, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh also announced another 2 crores to the athlete as his family originally hails from Punjab. That is not all as he also been awarded by a sum of 1 crore by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) who are recognising the efforts of all the medal winners at these games. He is also set to get 1 crore from the Indian Premier League franchise Chennai Super Kings for his tremendous achievement.
That's not all as even the Manipur CM M N Biren Singh decided to announce 1 crore for the Tokyo 2020 hero Neeraj Chopra. Meanwhile, businessman Anand Mahindra has yet again honoured the country's sporting hero and announced a brand new XUV 700 for him.
These are just tokens of appreciation by a nation that is starved of champions and gold medallists, the list has even more awards and it is likely to get longer with time.