Germany star Johannes Vetter said he is happy for Neeraj Chopra who went on to win a historic Gold medal for India.
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German javelin-thrower Johannes Vetter congratulated Indian athlete Neeraj Chopra on Saturday for winning the gold medal in the men’s javelin throw event at the Tokyo Olympics. The German said that he was happy for Chopra after his brilliant performance and called him a friend. Ahead of the Olympics, Chopra was not one of the strong favourites to win the gold medal in the javelin throw. It was Vetter who was in serious contention. The German athlete had, on seven occasions this year, breached the 90m mark in the sport before. Therefore he was one of the strongest favourites to win the gold medal. Things, however, did not go as planned for the German.
Vetter did not have a good Olympics by his standards. He was struggling to consistently hit the 85m mark in the gold medal match. It was one of the biggest upsets at the Olympics as fans and experts expected the German to surely breach the 90m mark with at least one of his throws. The German failed to make the top eight of the 12 that had qualified for the finals, falling way behind what he might have set as his goal.
The German did not have a particularly good qualifying round either as he struggled to get a good distance to his throws. He did win the gold medal in the 2017 world championship and a bronze in 2019, However, he is yet to win a medal at the Olympics just yet. The German congratulated Chopra on his victory after the event.
“He (Neeraj) is a really talented guy, always really friendly. I am happy for him,” Vetter told Athletics Asia.
“If you watch the throws again, you can see it is not the right surface for me. It’s a good surface for all the runners, for all the nice world records and Olympic records on the track, but not for javelin throwers like me. It really makes me sad,” he added.
Chopra, however, had to keep his composure about him to win the gold medal, and in the end, nobody could even come close to his best throw. Vetter said that the hot and humid conditions might have suited the Indian athlete but the surface at the Olympic stadium did not. Vetter himself suffered an injury scare and he blamed that on the surface as it did not allow enough braking room.
“It’s like driving a car autopilot. You can’t brake and I have to brake to throw far. I was trying everything. I was trying in every throw and every warm-up throw to find the right technique for this surface,” Vetter said.
Chopra and Vetter had travelled together for close to three hours from Helsinki when they had both competed in the Kuortane Games in Finland in June. The German had emerged victorious in the event while Chopra had finished in an impressive third place. Conditions in Helsinki were certainly different from those in Tokyo and it clearly seemed like the Indian athlete took full advantage of them.
