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From paddy fields to the podium: How Neeraj Chopra became Olympic champion

In an interview with Khaleej Times ahead of the Paris Games, Neeraj Chopra opens up about his journey

How difficult is it to remain refreshingly humble when you smile at people from giant billboards across a country of 1.4 billion souls?

If you are Neeraj Chopra, it’s pretty easy. India’s only track and field athlete to have won an Olympic gold, Chopra says it’s his modest upbringing in Khandra, a small village in the northern Indian state of Haryana, that has helped him remain deeply rooted in his culture.

The 26-year-old javelin thrower, who worked on the paddy fields before a coach spotted his athletic talent, now has a chance to become only the fifth man in history to defend Olympic title at the Paris Games.

During an interview with Khaleej Times, the reigning world and Olympic champion, who is supported by JSW Sports and Inspire Institute of Sport, revealed his admiration for Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, the Commonwealth Games gold medalist who will be one of his strongest rivals in Paris.

You have earned new recognition for India which had no history of producing Olympic and world champions in track and field events. How does it feel to be inspiring so many young kids and giving hope that even a cricket-obsessed country like India can produce world-class athletes regularly?

Yes, I can say this now because I am an Indian and I became an Olympic and world champion. So if I can do this, a lot more young athletes in India can also do this. I think I have proved now that Indians can achieve anything in sports. If I had said this earlier, people would have laughed at me, but now that I am an Olympic and world champion, I say this with confidence that we can produce more athletes that can win gold medals in the big events. All you need is the confidence and the desire to work hard. If you can do that, you have every chance of competing against the world’s best athletes.

This will be your second Olympics after you made history in Tokyo. You must have prepared very well for Paris…

Yes, everything has gone well in the build-up to the Olympics. I also took part in the Finland event and I was happy with my performance (gold medal). It was a very good preparation for me ahead of the Olympics.

What sort of confidence does it give you while going into the Paris Games as the reigning Olympic and world champion?

Of course, it gives you a lot of confidence. But more importantly, there is a lot more responsibility on my shoulders now. Since I have won the gold medal, now it’s my responsibility to defend it for my country in Paris. It’s a great feeling to be in this position. In terms of confidence, of course, since you have won it, you feel like why you can’t do this again. So I have tried everything in training and worked very hard to achieve it. The only worry during the preparations was injury. Luckily there were no injury issues.

Since you spoke about trying to make more history by defending your gold medal in Tokyo, we were looking at the records and only four javelin throwers managed to defend the Olympic gold in the past. So you have a chance to become only the fifth athlete in history to defend the Olympic men’s javelin gold…

Obviously, if I win, that would be amazing. As I said, I have been working very hard to achieve something like this. But I don’t want to comment about the chance of emulating those great athletes. All I can say I have been working hard to win the gold medal again for my country.

You will face stiff competition in Paris. Your rivals would be gunning for glory. Who do you think are your strongest competitors in Paris?

Looking at the records in the warm-up events, it’s difficult to predict who is going to be the toughest rival because athletes don’t give their 100 per cent effort in these warm-up events. They are always trying to save their best for the big event. But I know Jakub (Vadlejch) and (Julian) Weber are throwing very well. I think they are very well prepared. I have to see the rhythm and form of Arshad Nadeem and Oliver Helander. All of them are top athletes. So it will all depend on who finds the top form on the day that matters. Keshorn Walcott, the (2012) London Olympic champion, is also making a comeback. So it’s a very strong field. As I said, it will depend on who finds the best rhythm on the day.

We have seen you at the Olympics and the World Championships. Your body language is always so positive, you look so confident waiting for your turn and then as you run and throw, you look in complete command. For an Indian athlete, it’s amazing to see that level of confidence on the big stage against the world’s best. Were you always this confident right from your childhood days when you were competing at the junior level in India?

When I was small, I was not doing sports. But yes, I always have that confident mindset in everything I did even as a small boy. If I had started a task, I would not leave it without completing it well. As you know, I come from a farmer’s family in a small village in India. I had to feed the buffaloes at the farm, and we had a lot of buffaloes. I would never ever stop until I fed the last buffalo. This may look like a very small thing for you now, but when I was small, this was a very big task for me and I was very focused on doing a good job. And I used to go to the paddy field and pick the crops. We had a bunch of young boys in the field and all of them were competing who could finish the job first. So all those small things probably helped me build a competitive mindset from a very young age. I always believe that whatever you do in life, you have to give your everything in it. So all those things I think helped me build that competitive streak when I became a sportsman.

It's an amazing story you have just shared. Yours is an incredible journey from the paddy field in a small Indian village to the Olympic podium with a gold medal around your neck. When you look back now, does it feel like a dream sometimes?

Now I know that this is real, whatever is happening in my life. I think it’s all because of the hard work. Yes, I had dreams but then I worked very hard to realise those dreams. Also, it has not been a bed of roses. There have been tough times as well as an athlete, there have been injury setbacks, I had to endure a lot of pain. So all these things are happening in my life after the whole journey. It doesn’t really feel like a dream anymore. But yes, when I won the gold in the Olympics, as you know, that’s the biggest thing any athlete can dream of, so at that moment in Tokyo, I had to pinch myself to make sure it was not a dream. It was real. After I came back from the stadium, I had to do the interviews and I was very, very tired in the night. I just fell asleep with the medal by my side on the bed. And then when I woke up the next morning and saw the medal on the bed, it felt amazing. I was alone in the room with the medal, there were a lot of memories that came flooding back, everything that happened in my life until then. That moment was very precious.

Seeing the gold medal on the bed the next morning in Tokyo was the most amazing feeling. But it’s also amazing to see how an Olympic and world champion has remained so humble. You are now as big a superstar in India as the big cricketers. And you are the greatest Indian track and field athlete in history. How have you remained so humble?

I don’t know but if people feel that I am a very humble person, it’s really good for me to know that. I have read somewhere that people who are truly big and successful in life are the people who never make others uncomfortable in their presence. Now I am not clubbing myself among the big and successful people, but that line really inspired me. What I have learned is that everybody that you meet can do something amazing in life. Everybody can be special in their own way.

What is also amazing to see is the rise of Arshad Nadeem in Pakistan. He is going to be one of your biggest rivals for the gold medal in Paris. It was perhaps beyond everyone’s imagination that an Indian and a Pakistani would be vying for an Olympic gold in javelin throw. And what is more remarkable is to see the mutual admiration between you two, which has also brought a lot of positivity in the two countries that don’t otherwise seem to agree on many things…

I think even in cricket, you can see that a lot of our players share a very good relationship with the Pakistani cricketers. And if you go back in history, Milkha Singh, our legendary runner, and his greatest rival at the Asian Games, Abdul Khaliq, was from Pakistan. There were fierce rivals on the track, but off the track, they always shared a good relationship. So it’s the same with me and Arshad. Whenever we meet, we talk about sports and life. There is respect. And I really admire him as an athlete, he won the Commonwealth Games gold, the world championship silver.  There was no such craze for athletics or javelin throw in India and Pakistan before both of us emerged. So to see him deliver such performances is really good.

You have competed with Arshad mostly in foreign countries in big events. But what about having some sort of an event in a place like Dubai where so many Indians and Pakistanis live? An exhibition event maybe when both of you can come together and share your experiences with the audience here. If ever you get an opportunity like this to do something together with Arshad in Dubai, would you be game for it?

Of course, if something like this is planned in the future, then why not. If my schedule allows me, and if I am in India, which is just about a few hours away from Dubai, we can definitely do something. As you know, I am mostly in Europe where I train and compete. But if there is a chance in future, I would do it.

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