CWG 2022: Neeraj Chopra and javelin’s throw of the dice | Commonwealth Games 2022 News – Times of India

For a nation always clamouring for more, Neeraj‘s injury is untimely reminder that rare success is sustained only by pushing the limits of endurance
As a nation, we are so enamoured with personality cults, both inside and outside the arena of sport, that we sometimes forget Neeraj Chopra stands alone in his field.
He is a toweringly successful sporting figure of considerable dramatic appeal, acceptable across the spectrum. He also stands distinctly apart, the flag-bearer of a mystifying art who defies the straitjackets we pigeonhole our public figures into.
In a country obsessed with the divine, this Olympic gold-winning javelin thrower stands a beacon of human potential. Adulation, however, is not a cure for fallibility.

No one knows this better than Neeraj, who is acutely aware of the limitations of his own body. He knows his withdrawal due to a groin injury will dampen public excitement around the Commonwealth Games, but that is part of the deal. His incredible achievements are not miracle or fairy tale but wrought by sheer effort.
The decision to pull out now, instead of keeping everyone hanging till August 5, the qualification round of his CWG competition, is thoroughly professional. There is no copyright on setting benchmarks.
The extent to which Neeraj played through the pressure at Hayward Field, battling headwinds and some superlative early throws from Anderson Peters, is now clear. The pain he felt in his thigh after the 88.13m throw would have been, at that moment, sweet sacrifice for the World Championships silver it made possible.

In our eyes, Chopra and his javelin are united by a cosmic bond, much like the Silver Surfer and his indestructible board, destined to hurtle from one impossible feat to another.
In truth, our wide-eyed amazement at his incredible feats is made possible by the athlete’s own will. It is he who desires to defy what we consider possible in the context of Indian track and field. Sometimes, in this inexhaustible quest, a limit is crossed. Injury follows.
An Olympic gold would have been enough to satiate the vicarious appetites of an excellence-starved sporting nation. It would have been easy to just sit back and soak in the plaudits and the felicitations, get fat on reputation. As it turns out, for Neeraj, who took to sport and physical activity as a means to evade the constant fat-shaming in his early teens, an Olympic gold is turning out to be just another marker in his legend.
Chopra is now ferociously hunting the 90-metre throw that will keep him relevant in an increasingly competitive field. This field includes the ego-blaster Peters, who will be there in Birmingham, now looking to float effortlessly by as others huff and puff. Neeraj’s own targets are considerable, but after this injury, not as immediate: after 90, and it will come, it will be time to target idol Jan Zelezny‘s 98. 48. Maybe even beyond.
This is how Neeraj Chopra’s mind works, for he is not just a product of his surroundings. He defines them. He did so in childhood when he took up the sport. Or at the World U20 Championships in Poland in 2016 or at the Stockholm Diamond League just last month. Or, notably, in Tokyo.

Witness the incredible effort made in Chula Vista to shed some recent flab and get back to peak physical condition. Witness the string of career-best throws leading up to the World Championships. No doubt his team is world-class but they are not slave drivers. The persuasion comes from within.
At the centre of it all, of course, is acute scientific knowledge of the sport and keen awareness of his physical capabilities. The sport is very, very complicated but to simplify things, a javelin’s distance is decided by three broad parameters: the height, angle and velocity at release time.
A bio-mechanical analysis of the javelin throw at Concordia University in 2018 concluded that contrary to expectation, the strongest arm does not throw the furthest. This is an overarm throw with fling motion where the arm is involved only after the major muscles of the legs, hips and trunk. Enter Neeraj, ostensibly not as strong as he was before the Olympics, and his current obsession with arm speed.
This rare clarity of thought has extended to Neeraj’s social media and public persona too. He did not take the bait when Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem was accused on social media of trying to tamper with his javelin in Tokyo. He instead highlighted the rare bonhomie among top javelin throwers, and lost none of his popularity in doing so. He is extremely comfortable in his own skin and doesn’t allow an endearing humility to get in the way of self-expression.
We love to think of our super-achievers as beings blessed with angelic abilities, beyond our ken and hence worthy of adulation. Sachin Tendulkar was a prodigy. Sunil Gavaskar had exceptional eyesight. Milkha Singh’s impulse to run fast was borne out of the ravages of Partition. And so on and on. Neeraj has cracked the code that unites them all. He is, first and foremost, steadfast.
In an interview to Olympics.com, he describes life as a “chaabi ka guchcha (bunch of keys).” If you can’t open the lock with the first key, or the second or the third, he says, “apna santulan nehi khona chahiye (you shouldn’t lose your poise)”. The correct key will come. He knew it when the elbow injury in 2019 required surgery on his throwing arm. He knows it now.
Maybe it is here that Neeraj stands apart. He always knew no successful athlete has it easy.
In a sport so ancient, it is apt to recall what the Stoic philosopher Epictetus said, from a place beyond time: “So you wish to conquer in the Olympic Games, my friend? And I, too. . . but first mark the conditions and the consequences. You will have to put yourself under discipline, to eat by rule, to take exercise… then in the conflict itself to be severely thrashed and after all these things, to be defeated.”
Epictetus never met Neeraj Chopra, who embraces the consequences.