Paris (France): India's ace javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, who clinched the silver medal at the Paris Olympics 2024, heaped praises on Pakistan athlete Arshad Nadeem's exceptional performance after the latter bagged the gold medal on Thursday. Neeraj asserted that this is the first instance since 2016 where the Pakistani athlete had triumphed over him in a competition.
The 26-year-old Neeraj participated in the competition as a favourite and started it with his Olympic best throw of 89.34 meters in the qualification round. After the qualifying round, Neeraj said that his best is yet to come and he proved his word right as he broke his own record in the final, improving his previous Olympic best to 89.45 meters, his career's second-best-ever and season-best throw.
Following his silver win, Neeraj became the first track and field athlete from India to win back-to-back medals at the Olympics. He also became only India's fourth individual athlete to secure podium finishes in consecutive Olympic events after Sushil Kumar, PV Sindhu, and Norman Pritchard.
The 27-year-old Pakistani javelin thrower's Olympic record-breaking throw of 92.97 meters helped him to win a gold medal. With this gold medal triumph, Arshad became Pakistan's first-ever individual athlete to clinch a gold medal at the Olympics, as the country saw their first-ever gold triumph after 32 years at the Summer Games.
Arshad's remarkable performance saw him surpass the 90-meter mark twice, shattering the previous Olympic record held by Norway's Andreas Thorkildsen (90.57m in Beijing 2008) and he then concluded the competition with another massive throw of 91.79 meters on his final attempt. In between also threw a javelin to a distance of 79.40 meters.
"Arshad performed well and I would like to congratulate him. I've been competing with him since 2016, and this is the first time he has won while competing together," said Neeraj after the final.
"Despite the injury, I am pushing myself hard. The throw was good, but I still have a lot left in me, and I need to stay fit to achieve it. I haven't achieved a 90-meter throw yet, but during the second attempt, I felt that today might be the day. I have faith in myself, and I know I'll reach that milestone someday. Holding your flag and winning a medal for your country is an incredible feeling," said the Tokyo Olympics gold medallist.
The Asian Games champion also asserted that frequent injuries before Paris 2024 hindered his title defence preparations. "The last two or three years were not so good for me. I’m always injured. In training, I’m not doing a lot of throws because of my groin (injury). I really tried hard, but I have to work on my injury (staying injury-free) and technique," he concluded.
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