Tokyo 2020: Neeraj Chopra adds a golden chapter to Indian sports history

Thanks to Neeraj Chopra, August 7 will always be a Red Letter Day in Indian sporting history.

On this day in 2021, Neeraj Chopra won the men’s javelin throw gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

It was India’s first-ever Olympic medal in athletics and the realisation of a long-standing dream - one which legends like Milkha Singh and PT Usha had also chased but fallen short of by agonisingly narrow margins.

Moreover, Neeraj Chopra’s Tokyo crown was India’s second individual gold medal at the Summer Games after Abhinav Bindra’s shooting title at Beijing 2008.

Here’s a look back at how Neeraj Chopra went about scripting history in Tokyo.

Neeraj Chopra’s Road to Tokyo 2020

Neeraj Chopra’s journey towards his Tokyo destiny began on a note of failure.

An up-and-coming junior athlete in the domestic circuit at the time, Neeraj Chopra failed to qualify for Rio 2016. While the qualification standard for Rio Games was 83 metres, Neeraj’s best throw in the qualification window measured 82.23m.

As fate would have it, just a week after the qualification window closed, Neeraj Chopra logged an 86.48m throw, a junior world record, to win the 2016 World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

It boosted Neeraj’s confidence and he continued to impress, winning medals at big events like the Asian and Commonwealth Games.

With Tokyo 2020 approaching, Neeraj Chopra suffered a setback.

An elbow injury, which had forced him to miss the 2019 Doha World Championships, forced him to undergo surgery on May 3, 2019 - the same day the qualification window for the Tokyo Olympics opened.

Racing to recover in time, Neeraj Chopra returned to competitive action in January 2020 at a Potchefstroom athletics meet in South Africa and qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.

His throw in Potchefstroom measured 87.86m, comfortably surpassing the 85m qualifying standard set for the Tokyo Olympics.

With COVID pushing back the Tokyo Games to 2021, it gave Neeraj Chopra additional time to finetune himself for his debut Olympics.

“I took the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics positively as I thought I have got one more year for training. In that one year, I worked on my weaknesses like improving some techniques and gaining strength,” Neeraj Chopra said later.

Once competitions resumed in 2021, Neeraj Chopra gathered steam, winning multiple domestic meets. The run-up to Tokyo also saw him record a national-record throw of 88.07m, which he later bettered at the Indian Grand Prix 3 in Patiala.

Neeraj Chopra’s Olympic medal and battle vs Johannes Vetter

Despite his good form, Neeraj Chopra was far from a medal favourite at Tokyo.

The strapping Indian was a dark horse at best in a star-studded 32-man field, which featured the reigning world champion Anderson Peters of Grenada, London 2012 champion Keshorn Walcott from Trinidad and Tobago, Rio silver-medallist Kenyan thrower Julius Yego, among other big names.

But perhaps Neeraj Chopra’s biggest challenge at the event was German superstar Johannes Vetter, a former world champion who had made breaching the coveted 90m mark almost a routine heading into Tokyo 2020.

The German, who missed the Rio podium by just 0.6m, looked the outright favourite to redeem himself at Tokyo and was in sizzling form. In September 2020, Vetter even came within touching distance of Czech legend Jan Železný’s seemingly unbreakable world record of 98.48m with a 97.76m throw in Poland.

Vetter had already bested Neeraj Chopra at the 2021 Kuortane Games barely a month before the Tokyo Games and was confident of beating the Indian again at the Olympic Stadium in Shinjuku.

“If Neeraj Chopra is healthy and if he is in the right shape, especially in his technique, he can throw far. But he has to fight with me. I am looking to throw over 90m in Tokyo, so it will be tough for him to beat me," Vetter told World Athletics.

Neeraj Chopra, though, didn’t speak up at the time and would reserve his response for later.

In the qualifying round on August 4, Neeraj Chopra’s first and only throw of 86.65m was enough to top the field ahead of Vetter, who managed 85.64.

The majority of fans and pundits, however, were still not convinced about Neeraj’s gold medal credentials in the 12-man final. Most expected Vetter to come out all guns blazing and beat Neeraj in the medal round.

Tokyo 2020 Olympics javelin throw final - results

In the final, Neeraj Chopra started with an 87.03m in his first attempt and improved it to 87.58m in his second. His miscued third measured a paltry 76.79m and the Indian failed to log a valid attempt in his next two tries. The sixth and final throw saw Neeraj cover 84.24 to wrap up his sequence.

Though the throws were far from imposing, amid tough conditions at Tokyo that evening, Neeraj Chopra’s best attempt of 87.58m in his second attempt was enough to win him the gold medal. In fact, his first attempt of 87.03 would have also sufficed for the top podium.

Czech Republic’s Jakub Vadlejch (86.67m) and Vitezslav Vesely (85.44m) won the silver and bronze, respectively. Pre-tournament favourite Vetter, meanwhile, finished a distant ninth with 82.52m.

“People were telling me what Vetter had said about me, I didn't want to say anything about it then,” Neeraj Chopra said. “But in the Olympics, world rankings do not matter that much. All that matters is whose day it is, who comes up with his best that day.

“Honestly, I am sad for him now, because he was eliminated early in the final. But sports is like that, even greats do not win every day.”

And thus, Neeraj Chopra created history and ushered in a new era for Indian athletics, imbibing the belief in future generations that Indians, despite all odds, can stand atop the podium at the Olympics too.

Neeraj’s rival Vetter even went a step further and noted that Neeraj’s victory at Tokyo would have far-reaching implications for the sport of javelin throw.

“India is one of the most populous countries in the world. Of course, Neeraj Chopra winning gold was the best advertisement for our sport. We will have a lot of benefits (from his winning),” Vetter told news9live.com.

“Maybe his medal will also help some people in India who are battling societal issues such as poverty, look forward with hope and work harder. So, his medal was good for Indian society but also for the sport of javelin," Vetter added.