Dabaav. Pressure.
An audio-to-text transcript of Neeraj Chopra’s interactions since his gold at Tokyo Olympics would have these two words among the most repeated. Easily. Perhaps understandably, too. He has been in uncharted territory for a country of a billion plus people. No one ever had won an athletics Olympic gold from the country in history. A few legends came close to the podium but no one ever really threatened to top it. And so, there is extreme awe but also immense curiosity around Neeraj’s achievement and his mentality since then.
On Sunday morning Indian time, he had sports fans in India up and early. Watching on, with hope. He has made it possible that we would start a final at the Athletics World Championships – one of the, if not the, toughest events in the sport – expecting a medal, and not just hoping. And hence when he intentionally fouled his first attempt, just about cleared 82m with his second, and managed a decent 86m-plus with his third, it was impossible not to wonder about that word again. And add to that, Anderson Peters was throwing like a dream and two other competitors had already crossed 86m.
Pressure.
Step forth Neeraj, for his fourth attempt….
