It’s been a particularly revealing time of India’s mediocrity in sports at the 2024 Olympics with four bronze from just two disciplines, and a real bloodbath with 4th place finishes littered across sports in the first ten days at Paris. It has seemed criminal to even dream of silver or gold, until you wound up nearly weeping and wounded from the Vinesh Phogat misfortune, and settled with doom and dread in the heart, to watch Neeraj Chopra. And Chopra delivered with a silver on a day Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem threw an Olympic record throw of 92.97m to win the country’s first-ever individual gold medal.
With faintly ridiculous sounding confidence, and not seeming raving mad at all, the country’s mind immediately jogged up to Gold. Such lofty ambitions, this calm assurance, the easy thinking of this mere thought that, of course, India was contending for a gold, and might even sulk if it’s a silver, are alien for a country that is very self conscious of its poverty of Olympic medals.
There were no guarantees of course, this was the Olympics. But India at these Games was truly, the Dickensian best of times, and worst of times, with Neeraj Chopra taking over the mantle of ensuring the first half of that descriptor. On Wednesday, India was in shambles from the Vinesh shocker, and medals only from Chateauroux. Hockey salvaged a repeat bronze. But there was very little optimism for gold from anywhere else except Chopra.
India’s Neeraj Chopra during the men’s javelin throw final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, in Paris. (PTI)
The Hockey gold era is ancient and not easily summoned by most memories. And with just 2 individual gold in nearly 100 years of Olympic participation, India has found zilch reasons for delusions of gold medal grandeur. We know Chopra’s Tokyo odyssey was no dream, but it’s taken three years of the 26-year-old repeatedly delivering at two World Championships, an Asian Games and the Diamond League, for Indians to start believing how insanely they lucked out with this freakishly fantastic fiend of a talent in a mainstream sport like Track & Field.
The man simply refuses to indulge in the national hobby of disappointing at elite sport, which cascades into raucous self-flagellation, by a country that only recently won a proper title at cricket, arguably its best sport, after some 11 years. Unaccustomed to elite greatness, Indians just do a double take every time Chopra nails the podium, but haven’t gathered enough conviction (mercifully) to feel entitled to gold every time.
So, the humble, unfussed javelin hero, and the disbelieving Indians have struck up a rather convivial and toxicity-free social contract: they watch him go for gold every time without destroying the experience with cloying expectations, and Chopra earnestly turns up, goes streaming down the alley, turns into a bowstring and propels the spear, invariably over 86 metres, which suffices. He’s managed to keep the chattery, argumentative Indians a mix of gobsmacked and genteel, so they don’t sit on his head, hankering after 90+ metres, though Paris threatened to change that contented state of mind.
Silver medallist India’s Neeraj Chopra with fans after the men’s javelin throw final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, in Paris, France. (PTI)
It’s not like 1000s of lads are hurling javelins around the country, because of the Neeraj-effect, the sport isn’t built like that. A dozen perhaps who can follow in his footsteps. But there is an unspoken realisation even if not complete comprehension, that we might be living in the times of all-time global greatness. Chopra carries no airs. He’s most comfortable geeking out with athletes from various disciplines, and devotes months on end just to accumulate that consistency, quietly training abroad.
Any attempts to draw him into controversies, political or personal, spectacularly fail, because he seems free of all unwanted dogma. He doesn’t even need to deflect or sidestep techy issues. He simply answers wicked posers with the most sincere, decent and disarming thoughts, stubbing out all attempts at mischief.
It’s slightly boring for Indians, and spectacularly effective for him, that he’s in love with javelin, his sport, and can dedicate entire seasons to getting better at it, working away in silence. The proverbial 10,000 repetitions, and very little distracting him from his purpose. He turns up in TV commercials once in a while, meets everyone cordially, stays loyal to friends in need of support like Vinesh Phogat, and chases excellence without turning into a slave of fame or fancy arrogance.
Make no mistake, there’s no false humility or kowtowing in front of anyone that’s powerful. He holds his own, knowing fully well that he is a unique specimen, adored as long as he keeps delivering medals. Not beholden to strangling success in his sport either, but his downtime is strictly not for consumption of the masses. Without much fuss and comfortable with occasional fanfare, Neeraj Chopra has become India’s greatest sportsperson.
At age 20, he had said, “If you think about the big numbers and names, you’re competing only against the others. To me, what’s important is that I compete against the best I have within me, and try to beat that. Everything else will fall in place.” Within himself, Chopra found his ambition, and in Chopra, India found its totem of graceful greatness.
