The Olympic Champion, the World Champion, the Asian Games Champion, the (former) Diamond League and Commonwealth Games Champion. Neeraj Chopra's trophy cabinet boasts pretty much everything a Javelin thrower hardly achieves.
The Haryana-born, 26-year-old athlete has stamped India's map in all Javelin competitions around the world.
A young Neeraj got hooked to the sport by seeing a Javelin fly in the sky in a sports Stadium in Panipat. He first hogged the limelight at the World U20 Athletics Championships in 2016, when he won a gold with a U20 World Record throw of 86.48m.
He then went on to bag Asian Games Gold in 2018 and Commonwealth Games Gold in the same year. Chopra then became the first Indian track and field athlete to win an Olympic Gold, an 87.58m throw that is still fresh in the minds of the Indians.
His ridiculous consistency has stayed nearly the same over the years in most of the competitions, winning 11 of the 17 events he has been part of since the 2021 Olympics, including the 2023 Asian Games Gold, the 2023 World Championships and the 2022 Diamond League Trophy.
Neeraj now enters the Paris Games with a Gold medal around his neck - a rarity in Indian sport - with a desire to keep doing what he does best. Whatever's next, he is the Champion, already.
