India managed its best medal haul at the Tokyo Olympics as the contingent bagged as many as seven medals. The performance of the hockey teams, Aditi Ashok and several other athletes also made it a memorable game for the country. Neeraj Chopra rounded it off with a gold medal with an 87.58 meters javelin throw.
Neeraj is also a Subedar in the Army. Here we discuss the 5 interesting things related to his Army career.
- Neeraj Chopra got a direct entry as Naib Subedar in the Indian Army in May 2016 under the sports quota. His parent unit is 4 Rajputana Rifles. As a rule, no player is directly recruited into the rank of Naib Subedar in the Army, but Neeraj’s stellar record helped him get the rank of Naib Subedar.
- After joining the Army he was selected to get trained at the Mission Olympic Wing and Army Sports Institute in Pune. Mission Olympic Wing is essentially an initiative of the Indian Army to train its promising sportspersons.
- The initial trainer of Neeraj Chopra was Subedar Kashinath Naik, who won a bronze medal in the javelin throw at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
- Neeraj Chopra got his extensive training under German coach Uwe Hohn even before the Tokyo Olympics and this training helped him get stronger, fitter which helped him clinch the gold medals at the 2018 Commonwealth and Asian Games.
- After winning gold in the Commonwealth and Asian Games, Neeraj was promoted to the rank of Subedar. Apart from this, he was also conferred with the Arjuna Award and the Indian Army’s Vishisht Seva Medal in 2018.
After Neeraj scripted history, Chief of Army Staff General MM Naravane and all ranks of the Indian Army extended their congratulations to him for winning the country’s first gold medal in athletics.
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