Born on December 24, 1997, Subedar Major Neeraj Chopra PVSM VSM is an Indian track and field athlete who competes in the javelin throw. Neeraj Chopra holds the record as the current World champion for 2023 and was the Olympic champion in 2020. He is the first Asian athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in the javelin and the first Asian to win gold in his event at the World Championship.
Chopra was the first Indian athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in track and field. He is also the first Indian track and field athlete to win in the World Under-20 Championships. In 2016, he became the first athlete from India to establish a world record in athletics when he threw a world record of 86.48 meters.
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Chopra competed in both the 2018 Asian Games and the 2018 Commonwealth Games, where she won gold medals in both competitions while carrying the flag in the latter. He is currently the youngest Indian to win an individual gold medal at the Olympics, one of only two Indians to have done so as of 2023. He became the second Indian to win a medal at the World Athletics Championships with his silver medal at the 2022 World Championships. He went on to win the first gold medal for India at the 2023 World Athletics Championships and the second gold medal at the 2022 Asian Games. He finished with a silver medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Neeraj Chopra Childhood And Schooling
Neeraj Chopra was raised in a predominantly agricultural family and was born into a Haryanvi Ror family in Khandra, a village in the Panipat district of Haryana. He has two sisters and attended BVN Public School for his education. He later graduated from Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College in Chandigarh. As of 2021, he was enrolled in Lovely Professional University in Jalandhar, Punjab, to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree.
The Indian Army made Chopra a direct appointment as a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) in the Rajputana Rifles with the rank of Naib Subedar after being impressed by his performance at the South Asian Games and his future potential.[a] He accepted the offer and enlisted in the army under the sports quota.
Neeraj Chopra Career In Athletics
Early instruction
Chopra’s father registered him in a Madlauda gymnasium when neighborhood kids made fun of him for being overweight as a child. He was then enrolled in a Panipat gym. He started throwing the javelin after seeing some other players at Shivaji Stadium in Panipat.
In the winter of 2010, Chopra went to the Panipat Sports Authority of India (SAI) center, where he saw early talent practice by javelin thrower Akshay Choudhary from Ghaziabad and Neeraj. After seeing Chopra’s ability to throw 40 meters without any training and being impressed by his drive, Choudhary became his first coach. Chopra received instruction in the fundamentals of the sport from Choudhary and a few more seasoned athletes who had trained under a javelin coach in Jalandhar. Soon after, Chopra won his first medal—a bronze in the district championships—and convinced his family to let him stay in Panipat while honing his skills.
The 13-year-old Chopra was accepted into the Tau Devi Lal Sports Complex in Panchkula following a year of training under Choudhary. The sports facility had a synthetic runway at the time, making it one of the two facilities in the state of Haryana. There, he received coaching from running coach Naseem Ahmad, who required him to train in both long-distance running and javelin throwing. Panchkula did not have a dedicated javelin coach, so he and fellow thrower Parminder Singh downloaded videos of Czech champion Jan Zelezny and tried to imitate his throws. At Tau Devi, Chopra’s throws were usually about 55 meters, but he soon extended their reach, and on October 27, 2012, in the National Junior Athletics Championships in Lucknow, he won gold with a new national record throw of 68.40 meters.
International beginnings
Neeraj Chopra participated in his first international competition in 2013 at the World Youth Championships in Ukraine. In 2014, he won a silver medal at the Youth Olympics Qualification in Bangkok. At the 2014 Senior Nationals, he made his first throw of more than 70 meters.
At the 2015 All India Inter-University Athletics event, Chopra set a new junior world record with a throw of 81.04 meters, his first throw of more than 80 meters .
Chopra left Panchkula in 2016 to train at the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports, Patiala. He claimed that his inclusion in the national camp marked a turning point in his career because he received better facilities, a better diet, and an improved standard of training from that which was available at Panchkula. Chopra finished fifth at the 2015 National Games in Kerala. As a result, he received a callback for the national-level training camp. He claimed that training with javelin throwers at the national level raised his spirits. Chopra was also given his first serious javelin coach, 2010 Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Kashinath Naik, but after a month and a half, he returned to training alone because he found Naik’s regimen too demanding.
From 2016 to 2018
Chopra set a new personal record on February 9th, 2016 in the South Asian Games in Guwahati, when she won gold in the 82.23-meter throw, just short of the 83-meter threshold needed to qualify for the Olympics. That month, he also started training with Australian coach Gary Calvert. Chopra won a gold medal at the 2016 IAAF World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, and set a new national record in addition to setting a world junior record of 86.48 meters.
Despite surpassing the record held by reigning Olympic champion Keshorn Walcott, Chopra was unable to qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics because the cutoff date was July 11, the week before the U20 championships. A back ailment he had received during the Federation Cup in New Delhi in April 2016 had also hindered his Rio training, negatively impacting his performance in competition.
He departed from the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports in September 2016 to train at the Bangalore facility of the Sports Authority of India. After being formally admitted as a JCO in December 2016, he was granted an extended leave of absence to facilitate his further training.
At the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, Chopra took home a gold medal.
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Chopra won gold in the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships with a throw of 85.23 metres. He then went to London in August for the World Championships, but was eliminated before reaching the finals. On 24 August, Chopra suffered a significant groin injury in the finals of the Zurich Diamond League, sustaining the injury during his third attempted throw, in which he attained a distance of 83.39 meters; owing to the injury, he fouled his fourth attempt and skipped his last two allowed attempts. His first and best throw of 83.80 meters gave him a seventh-place finish. As a result of his injury, he withdrew from competition for the remainder of 2017.
After recovering from his injury, which he partly attributed to a heavy competition schedule and the lack of a proper diet and rest, Chopra spent a month at the Joint Services Wing sports institute in Vijayanagar. He then left for Offenburg, Germany in November to train for three months with Werner Daniels, whom he had briefly worked with before the 2017 World Championships. Calvert, his former coach, had departed India in May after disagreements over his contract. With Daniels’ assistance, Chopra refined his technique while in Offenburg, concentrating on strength training and extending his throwing range by changing his stance and keeping his hand lifted higher.
Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat congratulates gold medal winners in boxing and javelin throw Neeraj Chopra (second from right) on their performances at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
He became the first Indian to win the men’s javelin throw at the 2018 Commonwealth Games with a season-best throw of 86.47 meters. In May 2018, he once more broke the national record at the Doha Diamond League with a throw of 87.43 meters.
In August of 2018, Chopra participated in his first Asian Games as a representative of India. He also carried the Indian flag during the Parade of Nations. On August 27, he broke his own Indian national record in the Men’s Javelin Throw, winning gold with a throw of 88.06 meters. This was India’s first-ever gold medal in the javelin throw at the Asian Games. The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) recommended Chopra, the only track and field athlete that year, for the Major Dhyanchand Khel Ratna, the nation’s highest sports honor. However, Chopra won the Arjuna Award in September 2018 . In November, the army gave him an additional reward: an out-of-turn promotion to subedar.
Chopra trained under the direction of his German coach Uwe Hohn, biomechanics specialist Klaus Bartonietz, and physiotherapist Ishaan Marwaha in anticipation of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were eventually postponed to 2021. Hohn enhanced Chopra’s throwing technique in 2018 and 2019, describing it as “wild” previously.
Chopra’s application for a visa to travel to Sweden for training was denied because to the pandemic. The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and the Ministry of External Affairs intervened, and after weeks of frustrating attempts to obtain a visa, Chopra was allowed to travel to Europe with his coach. He flew to Paris on June 5, 2021, for a mandatory quarantine period before traveling to Portugal for the Meeting Cidade de Lisboa. There, he opened his international season with a throw of 83.18 meters, earning him a gold medal. Chopra stayed in Lisbon until June 19 before traveling to Uppsala, Sweden, with his coach, for additional training. This trip was approved by the Sports Authority of India at a cost of ₹34.85 lakh (US$42,000).
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In June 2022, he participated in the Karlstad Meet in Sweden, where he won a gold medal despite throwing a poor 80.96 meters. The 24-year-old earned the gold medal with a throw of 86.69 meters, his first and only legal throw, before taking home a bronze in the Kuortane Games in Finland with a throw of 86.79 meters . After the Kuortane Games, Chopra traveled to Lucerne to compete in the Spitzen Leichtathletik Luzern, but he decided to withdraw due to fatigue. He tried to obtain a visa for the United Kingdom to enter the Diamond League at Gateshead on July 13, but faced difficulties due to the pandemic and instead continued training and honing his technique in Uppsala. He attributed his reduced performance in Finland to a tendency to throw higher than he wanted and the fact that he had to use a different javelin because his own was unavailable.
2020 Tokyo Olympics
Chopra competed in the Olympics for the first time on August 4, 2021, representing India in the Japan National Stadium. He won the gold medal on August 7, 2021, with a throw of 87.58 meters on his second try, making history as the first Indian Olympian to win an Olympic gold medal in athletics and the first Indian Olympic medalist after independence.
With this medal, Chopra’s India finished with seven medals from the competition, more than the previous best of six medals from the 2012 London Olympics. Chopra’s performance in Tokyo made him the second-ranked athlete in the world in the men’s javelin throw. He also became the second Indian to win an individual Olympic gold medal, following Abhinav Bindra, who triumphed in the men’s 10 m air rifle in the 2008 Summer Olympics.
He dedicated his victory to Milkha Singh and P. T. Usha, two past Indian Olympians. Some historians claim that Chopra is the country’s first track and field medallist, although this claim is debatable. Despite India’s British sovereignty at the time, Norman Pritchard is officially recognized by the Indian Olympic Association and the International Olympic Committee as the first Indian track and field Olympic medallist. He competed at the 1900 Paris Olympics.
After the Olympics in Tokyo
Chopra set a new national record in June 2022 by placing second in the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku, Finland, with a throw of 89.30 meters, breaking his own national mark. He also placed second at the Stockholm Diamond League with a throw of 89.94 meters.
With a throw of 88.13 meters on his fourth try in the men’s javelin throw final at the Oregon World Championships in July 2022, Chopra guaranteed himself a historic silver medal. After long-jumper Anju Bobby George’s bronze in the 2003 World Athletics Championships, this was India’s second medal. On August 26, he won first place at the Lausanne Diamond League with a throw of 89.09 meters, making him eligible for the Zürich Final. On September 8, he won the Final, becoming the first Indian to do so and earning a spot in the 2023 World Championships.
With a throw of 88.67 meters in May 2023, Chopra won first place in the Doha Diamond League. That same month, he made history by taking the top spot in the World Athletics men’s javelin throw rankings.
With a throw of 88.17 meters, he won the gold medal in the 2023 World Athletics Championships in August 2023. In October 2023, he won the second gold medal in the 2022 Asian Games with a throw of 88.88 meters, which was a season-best.
2024 Summer Olympics in Paris
Chopra’s season-best throw of 89.45 meters in the final gave him the silver medal for India at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris .
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