Neeraj Chopra: Why he can be the biggest influencer for Indian youth today

It’s the morning after. Neeraj Chopra, now non arguably India’s greatest ever athlete, kept his date with back-to-back Olympic medals in Paris – though not quite the way he would have liked it to be.  

Well, one is not talking about the silver in Paris. He is a generational athlete whom we need to celebrate and it’s only after a time lapse of another decade or so that the enormity of his achievement will really sink in with us. A small piece of statistic tells you why – only two javelin throwers have managed to win back-to-back gold medals in Olympics since World War II.

What surely bothered Neeraj was the manner his evening panned out at the cavernous Stade de France on Thursday, 8 August. His second throw of 89.45 metres, which came under immense pressure as Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem had just heaved a monstrous 92.97 m before him, was an improvement on his previous best of 89.34m in the Qualifiers two days back. Nadeem’s Olympic record early on meant that Neeraj and the rest of the field were playing catch-up from there, but to record five fouls out of six throws had been catastrophic by his exalted standards.

However, Neeraj’s greatness lies in the fact that he is the first person to get candid that he needs to work on his fitness and technique in the coming days. It’s this disarming honesty (he made no bones about the groin niggle in the run-up to the Olympics) and the positivity that he brings to the table, not to speak of the extraordinary skillsets, that makes him transcend the status of an Olympic champion to that of a role model for the youth of the country.

The last three years since Tokyo gold had seen Neeraj grow taller in stature by the day to become one of the modern greats in javelin at 26 years, while the trappings of stardom certainly followed with constant social media glare, endorsements and earnings – but he has still managed to retain the refreshing earthiness.

The Neeraj Chopra today may be equally comfortable in exchanging pleasantries with high-powered politicians or industry captains to a sitdown lunch-cum-interview in Curly Tales, but he does it on his own terms. The Haryanvi Hindi is still his calling card, and he makes no bones about it, along with the wonderful capacity of putting people at ease.

 A lot of Neeraj’s no-frills attitude could be attributed to his early vocation of being an Army personnel, but then mindless jingoism has never interfered with his judgement. His on-the-pitch friendship with Nadeem has been well documented since Tokyo and despite the latter stealing the show in the Paris final, a quote from Neeraj’s mother has gone viral this morning: ‘’We are very happy with the silver. For us, even the silver feels like gold. The one who won the gold (Nadeem) is also my child. They all work hard to get there.’’

It’s no surprise that someone like Neeraj has the powers that be eating out of his hands, but it did not prevent him from calling out the plight of the wrestlers when Vinesh Phogat & Co were carrying on with their protests at Jantar Mantar last year. A gesture, which most of the sporting megastars or Bollywood glitterati shied away from because of the political ramifications involved.

‘’It hurts me to see our athletes on the streets demanding justice. They have worked hard to represent our great nation to make us proud. As a nation, we are responsible for safeguarding the integrity and dignity of every individual or not. What’s happening should never happen,’’ he had posted on social media.

In an era where the word ‘influencers’ has taken a frivolous ring to it, thanks to social media, Neeraj Chopra is certainly a real one to look up to. He truly epitomises what India ought to be after more than 75 years of independence – a combination of mehnat (hard work, his favourite expression), talent and unflinching honesty to the cause.

The country can certainly do with more Neeraj Chopras!