Neeraj Chopra doesn’t have words to describe how it felt to stand on the podium in Tokyo on Saturday.

“When you stand on the podium at the Olympics, wearing the gold medal, with your national flag being hoisted and the national anthem being played, you feel all your years of hard work have paid off. I just can’t explain that feeling. I don’t have words for that. All I can say is it was an extremely proud moment,” an emotional Neeraj said in an interaction from Tokyo, a day after his gold medal winning feat.

“On Saturday, all I was thinking was that I have to improve with each throw. But javelin is a very technical sport. A very small error can lead to a huge difference in the distance. Going into the final, I was confident that I would be able to better my personal best mark. It is true I could not do that, but winning an Olympic gold is a different feeling altogether.”

Neeraj’s gold medal throw of 87.58m fell short of his personal best of 88.07m, a national record he set this year.

The 23-year-old’s journey since 2019 has not been easy. Plagued by injury and then the Covid-19 pandemic meant he missed out on training and competitions. But the Tokyo sojourn has wiped away all the negatives.

“All that went wrong for me in the past two-three years because of my injury and then the pandemic, all that I lost — this gold has made up for all that. This is what matters. Now I can say, whatever happened, happened for the best.”

Neeraj now wants to come home and celebrate with his loved ones. “I want to go home, have food cooked by my mother, celebrate a little. And then I will again get back to training. I may take part in some meets this year, but I really want to focus on the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games next year.”

His mother is waiting to cook for her golden boy, specially the choorma that he loves.

Is a biopic on the anvil? “I want to focus on my sport now. I would wait till my career is really over. There will be more to the story then,” he concluded with a smile.