90 metre or not, Neeraj Chopra is not losing his sleep over it, believes his former coach Kashinath Naik as the Olympic Champion competes in his first major competition of the year in the Stockholm Diamond League on Thursday.
File photo of Neeraj Chopra. PTI
The stage seems all set for Olympic Champion Neeraj Chopra as the long wait for an unprecedented 90-metre throw may end tonight when the 24-year-old javelin thrower will compete in his first Diamond League of the season in Stockholm.
The expectations of a 90m throw from the young man from Haryana first came to being in 2016 when a 19-year-old Neeraj won the U-20 World Championship while breaking the category’s world record with a huge throw of 86.48m in Poland.
Improving on his national record thrice since then — as recently as 16 days ago in Finland with an 89.30m throw during Paavo Nurmi Games in Finland — Neeraj has come a long way and his former coach Kashinath Naik believes Neeraj has primed for the big occasion.
“There’s no doubt 90m Neeraj will touch, in fact will go beyond 90m soon,” Naik told Firstpost. “Jo thrower 89m maar raha, uske lie 90m koi badi baat nahi (For somebody who is already throwing 89m, 90m is not a big deal). He is not catching up with the German and European throwers anymore, he is right there with them as he averages 86m and above in every competition like his rivals.”
Naik, who trained Neeraj during his formative years at the Athletics Federation of India national camp briefly in 2015, pointed out that the Tokyo Olympic gold medallist represents the new age Indian athlete, who has peaked mentally.
“Neeraj was always a mentally mature athlete, who never thought about numbers. For him it is always about giving his best and not bothering about how far his throw went,” said Naik, who is the first Indian javelin thrower to win a Commonwealth Games medal (bronze in 2010).
“Indian throwers generally peak late mentally, they understand late in their career that it’s not about the result but giving your best. Neeraj got that right early in his teens, he was always relaxed after an event, knowing he gave his best. It’s his mindset that always holds the key.”
The 2020 Tokyo Olympic gold medallist also has every reason to feel bullish about his chances on Thursday night despite facing an expected competitive field, which consists the likes of season leader Anderson Peters, Tokyo silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch, former world champion Vitezlsav Vesely and newfound rival Oliver Helander.
Both Peters (season-best of 93.07m) and Vadljech (SB 90.88) have dropped the intensity of their performances by several notches since the Doha Diamond League meet as the distance of their throws has been shrinking ever since. In the last four competitions, Grenada’s Peters hasn’t gone beyond 87m while Vadlejch hasn’t breached 85m since Doha.
Naik believes that Neeraj will again try to exert pressure on his rivals by throwing big with his first two throws and then may look to improve on it.
“His approach should be the same as Tokyo Olympics where his winning throw (87.58m) came with his second throw after throwing 87m-plus with the first throw as well. This always takes the pressure off you and allows you to be calm and focus on getting your technique right for the rest of the event,” said the coach, who trains throwers, including young talent DP Manu, at the prestigious Army Sports Institute in Pune.
However, it could still be a mistake to discredit his rivals as some of them have years of experience behind them. Likes of Peters and Vadlejch have the knack of peaking at the right time; in this case could be Stockholm Diamond League, which has a fat prize purse in comparison to the events they competed in recently.
39-year-old Vesely has also been picking up his form as he threw 85.97m at a local competition last week after struggling to go past the 80m mark early in the season.
Lastly, Helander is also a pretender for the gold medal after his freak throw of 89.83m stunned Neeraj for the Paavo Nurmi Games title two weeks ago and has been averaging 85m-plus off late.
Shedding more light on how an athlete likes to peak for a season, Naik explained coaches have a big hand to play in it.
“It depends on their respective coaches what training programme are they following. At times, it could go like Johannes Vetter, who threw 97m-plus early last year and crossed the 90m-mark 10 times but was already exhausted by the time of the Olympics.
“But sensibility is into peak with the big events in mind as you have to first do your best in qualifying and then go better in the final. For most of the throwers this year, World Championships (in July) and for Neeraj, you have to take into consideration the Commonwealth Games (in August) as well as he has his 2018 title to defend, which would mean he will have to peak twice in two months,” concluded Naik.
Stockholm Diamond League will be aired Live on Sports18 1 and Sports18 1 HD from 11:30 PM.
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