Neeraj Chopra had eyes on Games record: His was the country's seventh medal and first gold in this Olympics

Neeraj Chopra on Saturday.: Twitter / @Tokyo2020hi

Special Correspondent   |   TT  |  Calcutta   |  08.08.21 :  India’s new hero Neeraj Chopra was so charged up after his first two humongous throws that he chased the Olympic record on Saturday.

“After the first two throws went well, above 87m, I thought I could go for the Olympic record. But it was not to be,” he said.

Norway’s Andreas Thorkildsen set the Olympic record with a throw of 90.57m in the 2008 Beijing Games.

Neeraj dedicated his golden moment to sprint legend Milkha Singh, who passed away earlier this year. “Milkha Singh wanted to hear the national anthem in a stadium. His dream has been fulfilled,” he said.

Neeraj also thanked the trio of Australian Gary Calvert and Uwe Hohn and Dr Klaus Bartonietz (both Germans) for helping him to evolve.

“Javelin is a very technical event and when I started there were faults. These were ironed out with their help,” Neeraj said.

“I trained with Australian coach Gary Calvert and then I set a world junior record (2016). From Hohn, I got to learn so many new things. Then I started working with Dr Klaus. They understood my body and made very good training plans for me.”

The gold winner said he went completely blank before his last throw. By the time silver winner Jakub Vadlejch of the Czech Republic completed his last throw, he knew he had won the gold.

“I was the last thrower, I came to know I have won gold, something changed in my mind, I can’t explain it. I did not know what to do and it was like what had I done.”

German Johannes Vetter’s performance surprised Neeraj. “This year it was Vetter who dominated all through. Maybe because he took part in many competitions or some other pressure, I don’t know… But in the Olympics world rankings don’t matter. It depends on the day’s performance. Sometimes it happens that even the best can’t perform to their best.”