Neeraj Chopra: “It’s not that my Olympic medal is everything and so I don’t need to do more”

Ever since his Olympic gold medal, Neeraj Chopra has been seen everywhere. In cavalcades and on stages, alongside the mighty, amidst the throng of the commoner, on TV and video, responding to the sublime and the ridiculous. However dizzy the pedestal he’s elevated onto, the more Chopra has shone—with his medal and his 1,000-megawatt grin, always with the reminder that he wants to be more than just that medal. “When I started competing internationally, I understood about Abhinav Bindraji… I realised that this—to win an Olympic gold—was a very unique thing for India. That only one person had won it,” says Chopra, who is now only the second Indian to have clinched an individual Olympic gold in Tokyo. 

He reassures me, “I’m the same person that I was.” And continues, “Of course, it’s good that people know and appreciate you, but what’s bigger is that now everyone acknowledges my sport. Earlier you told them about it and still they wouldn’t understand. Now everyone in India knows what a javelin is. I’m most happy about that.” The delirious aftermath of Tokyo has also reminded him about the importance of protecting his sport and with it, himself. “Javelin ke bina,” he says, “mujhe lagta hai Neeraj hai hi nahin.”

In an eight-and-a-half foot, 800gm streamlined carbon fibre flying object, Chopra has found a version of himself that no one would have dreamt of when his family stuck a 13-year-old on a bus heading out of Khandra—population 2,153 (2011 census)—towards a stadium in Panipat. He was heading there on the insistence of an uncle who wanted the chubby teenager to get fit. Yet of the many sports on offer at the stadium, it is as if the javelin found him. When the then novice tried out the javelin, his earliest coaches were taken aback at the ease of throw and flexibility of limb. It’s as if the athlete inside Chopra was waiting to be set free by the javelin. “It is a part of me,” he says. “It is attached to my name— javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra is my pehchaan. I am connected to it.” It’s always been this way. Before the medals, the fame, this win.

Currently, it is athletics off-season, but in 2022, Chopra knows there’s a target on his back at three big events—the World Athletic Championships (July), the Commonwealth Games (July-August) and the Asian Games (September). He also knows he must turn away his public face at some point. “Now people think that Neeraj manaa nahi karta, but I will have to refuse. They will feel bad, but I don’t compromise on my training. I will fold my hands and say this cannot go on. If I do all this, then I will not be able to do anything more in my sport,” says the javelin star about his plans to set aside the gold before it weighs his neck down. “I’m an athlete, my job is to work. It’s not that my Olympic medal is everything and so I don’t need to do more. People remember those who win multiple medals in Olympics.” He invokes the pantheon of Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps, and wants to direct this thrill around Indian athletics towards giving millions of children access to what he didn’t have. Chopra knows he must make use of his position to proselytise for Indian track and field.

Articulate and energetic, he prefers to speak in Hindi, peppering his speech with Haryanvi proverbs. He says his “biggest dream” for Indian boys and girls is more grounds, coaches at those grounds, and regular competitions. “If not a ground in every village, at least one close to them, shared by other villages. And with coaches to guide them. When I go to Europe, all age groups have 15 or 20 competitions a year in the season. Competitions allow children to know their progress. Otherwise you just train but don’t know the direction you are taking.”

Today, India’s most-sought-after sports star wants to hold on to the private Neeraj—follow his love for photography, armed with a new Sony DSLR—and push back against social media narratives or having random shots fired from his shoulder. When faux outrage broke across hysterical news channels about Pakistani javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem using Chopra’s javelin in practice before Chopra’s first Olympic throw, he stepped up. On Twitter, Chopra appealed to his fans: “I’d request everyone not to use me and my comments as a medium to further your vested interests and propaganda. Sports teaches us to be together and united.” Now an Instagram influencer, with over 4.9 million followers, he laughs, “I’m going to keep my shoulder safe, give it a rest. I need to use it to throw the javelin, remember. I don’t ghuso into social media, but if I know I’m 100-per-cent right, I will speak up.”

As Instagram tells us, before heading off for a vacation to Maldives, the last not-so-quiet thing Chopra did—apart from showing off wicked acting chops in the Cred ad, was to visit ‘Bindraji’ in Chandigarh. When Bindra found out Chopra was mad about dogs, he gifted him a puppy called Tokyo. The synchronicity is not just in the name. Pre-Olympics, Chopra had told Manisha Malhotra, head of sports excellence and scouting at JSW Sports, about the breed of dog he loved most—a golden retriever.

This is the first time Vogue India has featured a male athlete on its cover. Movie stars turn up occasionally, but before Chopra, no man from sport did. Not even cricketers. It’s not as odd a merger as it appears. Well before the world knew him, Chopra followed his own style. He kept his hair long in school. While competing, it became—much to the horror of rural Haryana—a ponytail. “I was asked to cut it. ‘Oh, it’s so hot, cut it.’ ‘Oh you can’t become an athlete with long hair, cut it.’ I just kept it and they just got used to it.”

When waiting for the bus home on the Panipat highway, he would often kill time by sifting through export cast-off tees piled onto bed sheets along the highway. “It was a dream that one day I’d be able to go into a Nike or Adidas store and buy their shoes and their clothes,” says Chopra, who now has endorsement deals with everyone from online education behemoth Byju’s to Tata AIA Life Insurance. He eagerly waits for his new sports gear, but adds that he “likes formals too, plus jeans with a leather or normal jacket”.

In 2016, at age 19, the Indian army signed him on its sports quota when its athletics saw a teenager hurl javelins close to the 80m mark at the National Institute for Sport in Patiala. His parents needed a bit of convincing, but Chopra was hooked. After all, his home state Haryana sends thousands into the armed forces every year, whose stories of valour are legend around its villages. “And who doesn’t love the uniforms?” Chopra told an interviewer.

Personable and polite, Chopra has managed to stay humble even after his high-profile achievement. “I don’t do things to show off. No way. I do it because I like it and feel good about it.” These days, his hair is trimmed because it interferes with the sport, but he’s got India hooked onto his style. That’s what Olympic golds do—spotlight a Haryanvi village boy alongside high-fashion. But it’s all really because of what the boy has done—stepped up in elite sport and made the world his village. 

Styled by Priyanka Kapadia; Photographer's assistant: Aditya Sinha; Photographer's agency: Feat Artists; Hair: Yianni Tsapatori/Faze Management; Makeup: Kiran Denzongpa/Feat Artists; Assistant Stylist: Naheed Driver; Production: Imran Khatri Productions; Visuals Editor: Jay Modi; Art Director: Snigdha Kulkarni; Entertainment Director: Megha Mehta

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