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Neeraj Chopra, the Olympic champion and India's first-ever gold medallist in athletics, has his eyes set on another historic feat: winning the gold medal at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest in August. The 25-year-old javelin thrower, who returned after a month from injury also revealed that he does not feel any pressure of hitting the 90m mark, which is considered the benchmark of excellence in his event.
Neeraj Chopra, who won the Olympic gold with a throw of 87.58m in Tokyo, has been in fine form this season. Since 2020, Chopra has yet to finish outside the top three and has participated in 15 events, winning 11 of them.
However, Neeraj Chopra is not satisfied with his achievements so far and wants to add the World Championships gold to his cabinet. The Diamond League champion said that winning any competition against the best athletes in the world is more important than achieving a certain distance.
“The World Championships gold medal is still missing from my cabinet. I have a medal in the World Championships but it is not gold. All my focus is now targeted at getting fit for Budapest. If I can do that I can prepare myself for Asian Games as well,” Neeraj Chopra said during an exclusive interaction with a media house.
Neeraj Chopra also said that he wants to remain injury-free ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, where he will aim to defend his title, and that he felt some pain in his groin during his fourth throw at the Lausanne Diamond League, but hoped that it was nothing serious. The ‘Golden Boy’ of India also mentioned that there is still no decision on his participation in Monaco-leg of the Diamond League series and will decide seven days prior to the event.
