Chopra has not featured in any international competition since securing his place in the Olympics, in South Africa in 2020.
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Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra said that travel restrictions and quarantine measures set by several countries on India owing to a devastating coronavirus situation in the country has proved to be a significant setback for his training ahead of the Tokyo Olympics in a few months time. Chopra has not featured in any international competition since a qualifying tournament in South Africa in 2020 where he booked his place in the Olympics. He was also sidelined in 2019 due to an elbow injury. He did, however, manage to record his personal best, 88.07 metres in a domestic contest in Patiala earlier this year.
In a virtual press conference organised by the Sports Authority of India on Wednesday, the javelin-thrower said he is desperate for opportunities to compete at the international level ahead of the Olympics. “Competition is as important as training and I badly need opportunities to compete abroad,” he said. “When you train abroad, you don’t have any distractions, and you have a competition almost every second week. I miss that.”
Neeraj Chopra revealed that he had plans to train for The Games in Turkey in May. However, it had to be canceled since Indian athletes would have to quarantine for 14 days on arrival. He also said that some countries required Indian athletes to quarantine for as much as 21 days. This, he believes, is simply not feasible given the time constraint.
However, the Commonwealth Games gold medalist said that he would continue training in Patiala and try to do his best at The Games. He did raise concerns over rising temperatures in the city and the fact that it did not have an indoor facility. “It would only get hotter in June. I just hope we had an indoor facility here,” he said.
Chopra’s recently recorded personal best of 88.07 metres would have been good enough for the bronze medal in 2016, but the 23-year-old has acknowledged that competition at the highest level had increased since the Rio Olympics, and that he had to work hard to bring home an Olympic medal.
“I believe the benchmarks will be higher. Now we have a stronger group of six to eight throwers now regularly throw 87-plus,” he said. “I’ve trained hard and I believe I’m getting close to my 90-metre target.”
