Neeraj Chopra wouldn’t be throwing as a gold medal favorite in the World Cup final if coach Klaus Bartonietz hadn’t blown the game away already in May.
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Olympic winner in Tokyo and World Cup runner-up in Eugene Neeraj Chopra säväitt on Friday morning in the javelin throw in the World Cup qualification with real action: 88.77 is the sixth longest World Cup qualifying throw of all time. They go ahead Jan Zelezny and active throwers Johannes Vetter mixed Anderson Petersneither of whom will join Chopra in Sunday night’s finale in Budapest.
Zelezny and Vetter have each thrown further twice and Peters once.
Chopra’s level in the competitions of the season has been freezing: 88.67 on May 5 in Doha, 87.66 on the last day of June in Lausanne and 88.77 on Wednesday in Budapest. But it also lists all of Chopra’s competitions this season.
Indian’s German coach Klaus Bartonetz told Urheilu by phone after the qualifiers, how Chopra’s entire season was on a knife edge shortly after the Diamond League in Doha in May, when problems arose at the training camp in Belek, Turkey.
– The result in Doha was excellent, but in Belek, Neeraj felt slight problems in his adductor, in the groin area. Then it would have been a completely concrete option to continue the season and treat only the pain. If that had been done, we wouldn’t be in Budapest now. It’s been seen so many times in the javelin, Bartonietz laughed.
A team representative contacted the Arabian Peninsula, where Chopra, 25, returned at the end of May with her coach.
– He was examined in Doha and Dubai, and a lower abdominal muscle tear was suspected. However, the situation was better than feared, says Bartonietz.
Competitions on break
However, the doctors’ instructions were clear: competing had to be put on a long break right away. Throwing a tag in the chest would probably sooner rather than later lead to a big muscle tear and a long rehabilitation before next year’s Olympic Games. In addition, scar tissue would have remained in the injured area, predisposing to new injuries.
However, according to the coach, this decision was difficult for the thrower. The races in Hengelo (June 4) and Ostrava (June 27) were missed, but for Finns, above all, the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku on June 13 and the Kuortanene GP races four days later. In both, Chopra was one of the most anticipated guests.
– In the end, Neeraj would have stayed in Kuortane to train, and the accommodation had already been booked. It was a big disappointment.
Instead of the attractive and important competitions for World Cup preparation, Chopra’s groin was treated at a rehabilitation center in Mellingen, Switzerland, where the athlete’s Swiss manager Lukas Wieland quickly took care of the treatment place for a few weeks. From the center, Chopra came to the cuckoo clock country’s own Diamond League in Lausanne immediately in a wild move.
The only uncertainty
– We know that our absence caused disappointment in Finland, but there was no other reasonable alternative. Also in the Olympic summer 2021, we had to make the same type of hard decisions for health reasons, and then they became a big reward.
Even though Chopra, who has achieved staggering popularity in India, is already a seasoned elite athlete who knows that a break from competition is not the end of the world, it always causes uncertainty in the athlete.
– If I wonder if Neeraj will be able to throw 88 meters again in the final race, the only question mark is precisely the thin competition base of the season. Although I am no longer sure if 88 meters is even enough for a medal, says the GDR-born coach, who once defended his doctorate in biomechanics in the Soviet Union.
He believes that at least the Czech Republic will also throw over 88 meters in the final Jakub Vadlejch and who knows who tapped Pakistan in the World Cup qualifier with 86.79 in their season opener Arshad Nadeem. Bartonietz also counts his athletes as challengers by Oliver Helander and his compatriots Julian Weber.
In that sense, Chopra can already play sports with complete peace of mind, that after her Olympic victory, she no longer had to think about money, or at least its sufficiency.
– Financially, he will be dry for the rest of his life. And through him, at the same time, the whole family, which is the most important thing in the world to Neeraj, says the coach.