Aiming glory at Worlds, Neeraj Chopra heads to Czech Republic, others to Colorado Springs

NEW DELHI: To bolster India’s medal hopes in some of the forthcoming major international tournaments, including the World Athletics Championships, the sports ministry’s Mission Olympic Cell (MOC) has cleared proposals of athletes in athletics, shooting and archery disciplines, with double Olympic medallist javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra heading to a 57-day training camp to Czech Republic to train under legendary coach Jan Železný from July 11-Sept 5. The MOC sanctioned a total of Rs 3,95,19,057 for 10 disciplines, including archery, athletics, squash, shooting, table tennis, wrestling, cycling, kayaking & canoeing, para table tennis and para badminton at its 157th meeting here.

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The committee members approved defending Worlds champion Neeraj’s exposure trip to the twin cities of Prague and Nymburk at an overall cost of Rs 19.5 lakh. Neeraj, who won gold at the Budapest edition of the Worlds in 2023, will be accompanied by his long-time physio Ishan Marwah and plans to work extensively on his technique and run-up with an aim to achieve his second successive top of the podium finish at the showpiece athletics event, scheduled to be held in Tokyo from Sept 13-21.

The 27-year-old had earlier finished with a silver in the 2022 edition of the meet. “I have already identified areas I need to work on. While throwing the spear, I used to fall too much on my left side. I need to work on that. In training, I don’t do that, but in competition, it happens because of the extra effort I put in. I have achieved the 90m-mark this year. But I need to be more consistent to achieve it more often. I am continuously throwing around 88-89m, but I need to be more consistent,” said Neeraj on the sidelines of a promotional event in Gurugram on Friday.

Neeraj was in India to compete at the inaugural edition of the NC Classic – the country’s first-ever international javelin competition organised by Neeraj himself in association with JSW Sports – in Bengaluru late last week, which he won with a throw of 86.18m. The MOC also cleared training and competition proposals of other Worlds-bound athletes, including steeplechasers Avinash Sable and Parul Chaudhary and long and middle distance runners Gulveer Singh and Ajay Kumar Saroj.

All four will be training in Colorado Springs, Los Angeles from July 15 to Sept 3 for 50 days. While a financial assistance of Rs 10.3 lakh each has been provided to Sable, Gulveer and Saroj for their respective training stints, Parul’s exposure trip will cost the exchequer Rs 20.65 lakh as she would be accompanied by her running partner Ankita, another promising steeplechaser. Barring Saroj, the rest of the trio are all national record-holders and won medals at the Asian Championships in South Korea’s Gumi in May. The MOC also sanctioned an amount of Rs 40.66 lakh to seven compound archers towards the purchase of equipment and training. It includes the foreign training stint in Italy at a cost of Rs 24.17 lakh from July 10-Aug 5. The proposals of Ojas Pravin Deotale (Rs 5.5 lakh), Aditi Gopichand Swami (Rs 5.36 lakh) and Abhishek Verma (Rs 5.67 lakh) were also cleared. In shooting, the MOC sanctioned an overall funding of Rs 74.20 lakh towards training, competitions and ammunition support for 16 skeet and trap shooters.