Indian athlete Neeraj Chopra expressed his profound disappointment at being unable to retain his gold medal in the javelin throw event at the Paris Olympics 2024.
Neeraj took the silver medal home, thanks to his 89.45 metre throw in his second attempt, while Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem created history by bagging the country’s first Olympic gold since 1984.
Arshad also set the Olympic record with a 92.97m throw, going past Norway’s Andreas Thorkildsen, who threw farthest at 90.57 during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Neeraj expressed dissatisfaction with his performance and attributed his inability to secure another gold to recent injuries.
“I am happy that I could win a medal for my country, I’m not that satisfied with my performance today and also my technique and runway were not that good,” he said.
“The last two, three years were not so good. My injury concerns continued. and I have not been playing in enough competitions. I know I can throw 90m, but I have to do some more work.”
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Neeraj Chopra then lauded Arshad Nadeem and congratulated him for his historic victory.
“The moment Arshad threw 92m, I believed it might be possible and I tried my best, but it was just not my day. Arshad is fantastic,” he said.
“Arshad threw really well. Congratulations to him and his country.”
The Tokyo Olympics gold medallist shared that he will work hard and will rectify his mistakes to do better in future events.
“But I will work hard in the future. I have lots of work to do, and lots of mistakes to rectify. Today’s competition was really great,” he concluded.
For the unversed, before Arshad’s remarkable victory, Pakistan had never won an individual gold medal at the Olympics.
All of Pakistan’s previous three gold medals came in field hockey, with their team winning gold in 1960, 1968 and 1984.
Meanwhile, only two Pakistan athletes had won individual medals of any colour – with a wrestling bronze in 1960 and a boxing bronze in 1988.
Since the 1992 Barcelona Games, Pakistan has not won a medal of any kind.
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