Started following javelin because of Neeraj Chopra, says PT Usha

While it has been more than 22 years since she retired from competitive athletics, PT Usha remains one of India’s most decorated athletes. Having won ten medals in Asian Games including four gold medals in the 1986 Seoul Asian games. Usha missed the medal by a whisker in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics when she finished fourth. With Neeraj Chopra becoming India’s first Individual gold medallist in athletics, Usha has been impressed by the Haryana athlete and believes that he can achieve more in his career.

“Neeraj is an exceptional athlete and he showed that he is the best with winning the gold in Tokyo Olympics. He will be competing now in three consecutive events before the world championships and it will be an important year for him. He is very talented and his technique too is one of the best in the world. I first noticed him during the 2016 World Junior Championships and since then, he has improved a lot. I started following javelin events because of how good his technique is and I hope he achieves more in his career further,” said Usha, who is in Chandigarh for the Annual General Meeting of Athletics Federation of India.

While Usha retired from athletics in 2000, the former Kerala athlete started Usha School of Athletics in a rented facility at Quilandy village in Kerala in 2002. The school was later relocated to Kinaloor and the last 20 years has seen Usha training more than 100 national and international level athletes. While Usha missed the Olympics medal by a whisker when she finished fourth in 400m hurdles in 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the former Indian athlete is seeing Indian athletics gaining momentum post Chopra’s historic feat in Tokyo. “Earlier the best we could do was reaching fourth place in Olympics but Neeraj’s feat has changed all. Recent days have seen athletes like Murali Sreeshankar breaking the men’s long jump national record record last year and touching a distance of 8.36m m in the Federation Cup last year apart from last week’s jump of 8.31m in Greece.,” shared Usha, who is also famous as ‘Payyoli Express’.