Neeraj Chopra Sheds Light On Preparations For World Championships

Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra would look to break the 90m mark at the senior World Championships later this month. The Tokyo Olympics gold medallist had come up with a throw of 87.58m at the event to bring back the highest laurel last year, becoming the first Indian to win a medal in athletics at Olympics. Last month, Neeraj had registered a throw of 89.30m at Paavo Nurmi Games and then he improved his own record with a 89.94m throw at the Stockholm Diamond League. Ahead of the World Championships, Neeraj addressed a webinar on Wednesday where he spoke about his preparation.

"My preparation is going well. I have played in three competitions so far and I have performed okay in all of them. In two, I registered personal bests, so it is going well. Tomorrow, we will travel to Eugene and we will reach there by the evening. The World Championships will begin on 15th July. I have gotten confidence, it is not just about the best throw, I have been consistent and that is why I am feeling good. I had missed the 90m mark by 6 cm so I will try to break that, the preparation has been really good," said Neeraj.

"In June, we had major competitions and I played in them. My plan was to play in the Doha Diamond League, but we started late keeping the Asian Games in mind. We had World Championships, Commonwealth Games, and then the Asian Games, we had planned according to that. But now Asian Games have been postponed, but it was because of the Asian Games, that we started to decide our season late," he added.

During the webinar, Neeraj also explained why he stays wary of the cameras that always follow the athletes. Explaining the reason, Neeraj said: "I did not know there was a video that was being made in Stockholm (the video that went viral of him touching the feet of an elderly person), if we are getting respect, then we should do the same. Camera ka toh darr lagta hai Ji (We are scared of the camera). Earlier, we used to be in NIS, we used to dance and we celebrated in any fashion we wanted to, but now the old videos are also going viral. It is not like we have stopped dancing, but it is a bit of difficulty, we have to exercise caution as we do not know if a video is being made."

"It is important to stay focused on the work you are doing. If we are training, and I start thinking about something else, then things can become complicated. After the Tokyo Olympics, I was not able to train and my mind was going on that only. It is important to stay focused," said Neeraj.

If Neeraj manages to win at Eugene, Oregon then he will become the first men's javelin thrower to follow an Olympic triumph with a world title since Norway's Andreas Thorkildsen in 2008-09.

"Just like the mindset that I had in Tokyo, to give my best, I have the same mindset now. I learnt from the last World Championships, that during the qualification period, I did not have much knowledge. After that, I learnt that we need to give our best in the qualification period as well. Right now, the focus is on giving my best. I am not thinking about the distance and all," said Neeraj.