India’s javelin star Neeraj Chopra ready to take golden flight again

Five years ago a five-metre wide painting was discovered on an Indonesian cave wall – it was estimated to be 44,000 years old. In it were depicted what might be buffalo and pigs but also human-like figures holding a familiar object.

A spear.

If you wish any further history you can ask a tractor-driving, always-smiling farm boy from India whose job is to hurl this instrument of violence a peacefully long distance. Neeraj Chopra has been – take a deep breath – the Olympic, world, Asian Games, Diamond League Final and Commonwealth Games champion in the javelin. And this 26-year-old man of science loves that what he does connects him to the past.

“When man had nothing,” he tells The Straits Times from Saarbrucken in Germany, “he used to use the spear. For hunting his food. So while one may not use it for violence or to kill something, it has always been an integral part of mankind.”

Actually, Chopra, the Olympic defending champion, does metaphorically kill things. He snuffs out stereotypes about Asian track and field athletes lacking world-class ability. And he slays any notion that nice guys can’t win.

In the film Troy, Brad Pitt – no run-up required, of course, he’s Achilles – hurls a spear with deadly effect but with miserable technique. Spear-chucking might seem a simple, savage act but Chopra’s art requires a model’s runway, 250kg half-squats, a PhD in flight mechanics, a lumberjack-strong shoulder and, yes, a circus-acrobat’s flexibility which allows him to bend like a bow and hurl a 4kg medicine ball over 20m.

From the outside the javelin comprises a fast run, a sudden brake, a launch. Yet its mechanics are complex. Small things matter and Chopra’s patience in re-explaining his art to yet another interrogator reveals his affection for his trade. This is a devoted preacher.

The leg on which he braces as he throws is the blocking leg and it has to be straight and “strong enough to sustain our body weight at the time of launch”. Another vital factor, he says, offering a quick tutorial, is that “ideally the body should wait for the arm”.

“After all the work has been done by the rest of the body – the cross-step, the speed, the blocking leg and the whole wind up – that is when the arm needs to do the rest of the work.”

Energy has been channelled into the arm but “sometimes, in the desire to throw hard, one might start the movement of the arm a bit too quickly and that disrupts the entire throw”.

Chopra flings the javelin, yells, swivels and sometimes doesn’t even look at where it goes. His body just knows a good throw. “You don’t feel like you have exerted or pushed it as much as other throws, you haven’t overdone it, and yet, it feels perfect”.

The Indian is a star but wears fame with an improbable lightness. He has a list of sponsors the length of a stadium – including Coca-Cola, Omega, Switzerland Tourism, Visa, Under Armour, Samsung, Gillette, Tommy Hilfiger – and is one of the few non-cricketing athletes who can stop traffic. Yet he meets film stars and unknown strangers with the same respectful demeanour.

Much like his throwing (he has a personal best of 89.94m), Chopra’s answers are built of length and flow. He speaks in smiling Hindi and with the assurance of a man who is in easy, mystical tune with his craft and his body. I ask about nervousness and his reply is a minor essay on feeling.

“You could call it nervousness or pressure – whatever. It just is a different feeling… It isn’t what one gets in normal life. It’s what one gets in big moments, in important competitions. It is a very strong and different feeling.

“So far, it hasn’t happened that I am feeling it and have been overwhelmed... I always perform better with that feeling. I like that feeling. I find that when I feel that way, my body pushes at a different level.”

Consistency is the primary signature of greatness. In 2024, Chopra entered three events and was first twice and second once. In 2023, he entered six events and won four – including the Asian Games and World Championships – and was second twice. In the chaos of competition, he trusts in the skills he has forged.

“One can seem calm, and have a smile on the face, but there is a lot going on inside,” he says, clenching his fist to his chest. The heart races, the mind churns. Now science must marry faith.

“Let’s say I have thrown, and then someone after me throws better – then to try and surpass his throw, one has to trust oneself. That thing is quite interesting. It is only if one has implicit trust in oneself, a belief in one’s ability.”

In a stadium, runners belt down the track and jumpers challenge gravity. On one side the javelin thrower waits. “When I am waiting for my turn, that’s when the mind has many thoughts running through it – like how to throw, what was right or wrong about the previous throw.

“It isn’t like a big change can be made at that stage and yet it’s the small things – like the height of the throw, or the curve, how to control that. It could be about reducing the runway, it could be sometimes that I’m getting too close to the line.”

As he stands at the top of his run-up in Paris, India will cease breathing for a few seconds. No one in their 117-athlete contingent holds such promise. No one has a day – national javelin day, in this case – named after them.

“When I am standing at the top of the runway,” says Chopra, “from that moment on, it’s all muscle memory. And yet, the message that the mind sends to the body – about how you’re feeling, what kind of throw you have to make, how much pressure you have to exert and how – that is basically what I am thinking of and what I am trying to tell my body.”

Then he starts running, javelin at his shoulder, ubiquitous headband framing handsome face, and perhaps part of him becomes a boy again. The boy at the athletics ground who became fascinated by javelins. The boy in whose head a picture constantly flashed, of a “javelin being thrown, flying across the sky, going further and further”. And eventually deeper into history. After all, should he win in Paris he will become the only Indian to win two individual Olympic golds.

At home, the tractor gives way to a Ford Mustang and it is a fitting choice. The mustang was a legendary World War II fighter plane and it is also a free-roaming horse. Like the machine and the animal, he is a stylish creature of flight.

And also, like the Mustang, a classic.