The World Championships are tougher than the Olympics, says silver medallist Neeraj Chopra

India’s golden boy Neeraj Chopra once again rose to the occasion at the World Athletics Championship as he continued his Olympics run from last year by winning a silver medal at Oregon. This was a historic silver medal for India as they won their first medal at the event after 19 long years. It was Anju Bobby George who won the bronze medal back in 2003 and now Neeraj Chopra backs it up with a silver medal.

Neeraj Chopra was under a lot of pressure as he did not have a great start. He was out of the medal positions after three throws. However he calmed his nerves and came up with the best throw of 88.13m which pushed him in second place above of Czech Republic’s Jakub Vadlejch who had the best throw of 88.09m and finished with the bronze medal.

Despite Neeraj Chopra’s best efforts he could not simply compete with Grenada’s Anderson Peters who came up with three throws over the 90m benchmark as he sealed the gold medal.

Speaking after the medal presentation, Neeraj shared that he is satisfied with the Silver medal and feels that there will be more opportunities in future. He shared how the level of the sport is rising and even went on to say that the World Championships are tougher than the Olympics. “I feel very happy to have won this medal. The World Athletics Championships is a huge event when it comes to athletics. The level of competition is very high here and I would say it is more than the level of the Olympics.”

He shared how the conditions were not in his favour and the wind kept challenging him. He shared how he felt nice about the third throw but then during the fourth throw he felt something on his thigh. Although he carried on he will know about it in the morning. “After the 4th throw, I did feel a bit of discomfort in my thigh, I wasn’t able to put in that much effort. That was on my mind, but I just wanted to make sure I can throw. So I strapped my thigh. Hopefully it will be fine. I will know by morning how it feels or if there is something to worry about,” the Olympic champion shared.

The other Indian javelin thrower Rohit Yadav who also participated in the Men’s javelin event finished at 10th position with a best throw of 78.72m. It was nowhere near his best as he came up with a throw of 80.42m to qualify for the javelin throw event at the World Athletics Championships.