All eyes will be on Neeraj Chopra to deliver India’s elusive Olympic medal in athletics and end a wait of 100 years when he competes in the men’s javelin throw final on Saturday.
A pre-tournament medal contender, the 23-year-old fuelled the country’s expectations by topping the qualification round with an impressive first round throw of 86.59m. His personal best is 88.07m.
Three track and field athletes were part of the five-member Indian team at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp — the other two being wrestlers. But no Indian has won a medal in athletics in these 100 years.
The International Olympic Committee still credits Norman Pritchard’s 200m and 200m hurdles silver medals in the 1900 Paris Olympics to India though various research, including the records of then IAAF (now World Athletics), showed that he had competed for Great Britain.
A farmer’s son from Khandra village near Panipat in Haryana who took up athletics to shed flab, Chopra can script history by winning the elusive medal, which the likes of the late Milkha Singh and PT Usha let it slip from their grasp in the 1964 and 1984 editions.
“I am at my first Olympic Games, and I feel very good,” Chopra had said after the qualifying round on Wednesday. His performance was one of the best by an Indian in the Olympics, as he finished ahead of gold medal favourite and 2017 world champion Johannes Vetter of Germany.
