Neeraj Chopra’s silver icing on hockey bronze
Rohit Mahajan in Paris
Arshad Nadeem, shortly after 8.46 pm on Thursday, killed competition in the men’s javelin throw — a monster of a throw, a lifetime best of 92.97 m with his second attempt of the night, to go right to the top.
- 89.45m Season’s best Javelin throw
- 1stIndian athlete to win 2 Oly medals in track & field
Stade de France, packed to the rafters, roared for Nadeem. His competitors nodded at Nadeem, awed by the effort. In the stands, his coach pumped his fists — a dream first valid throw in the Olympic final, over eight metres better than his season’s best of 84.21 m.
Nadeem had laid the marker — with the mightiest throw of his life, all others in the field knew that they must throw like Hercules himself to snatch the gold. Excluding Nadeem, three in the field had ever gone past 90 metres — and only Anderson Peters, at 93.07m, had thrown farther than Nadeem did tonight.
Then came Neeraj Chopra. All around him there was sound and fury and noise — Noah Lyles beaten to third in men’s 200m! A world record by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone in the women’s 400 metres final! But Chopra, monk-like, was focused on what he must do to keep the Olympic gold he won in Tokyo.
Then the Indian superstar, having fouled his first throw, stepped at the top of his run; he stretched his legs right and left, took in a few deep breaths and started his run of 25-odd steps towards the white line that marks the limit — and he hurled the spear... and it soared higher and higher before descending... Chopra 89.45! Pakistan and India 1-2 at the main Olympic stadium, an event no one saw coming as little as five years ago.
Between the throws, Chopra, bustling with nervous energy, and to keep the blood flowing, walked and walked, across a distance of 20 metres from and to the seating for the athletes; he drank from his sipper, chatted with Nadeem, shadow-threw again and again.
At 9.41 pm, Chopra went for his sixth throw, for the one final time in Paris — and another invalid throw, his fifth foul of the six throws he had.
Then came Nadeem, for his last throw — 91.79 metres! Twice in the night the Pakistani, surely a living legend, had thrown the spear past 90 metres and beaten his friend and inspiration from India, Chopra, to the second spot.
