The Neeraj Chopra classic will be held at the Sree Kanteerava stadium, Bengaluru on May 24.
Announcing it was a very happy, very proud-looking Neeraj, addressing a virtual press conference. Coming from a man whose pride in his own achievements is usually understated, that open pride was itself something different. You could see it in how he said, “I feel like I’ve done something for India, for India’s athletes.”
The event, he says, will be an annual event, and while it will only feature men’s javelin in this edition, they are working on including more events in the future. Neeraj confirmed the participation of several of his peers, taking care to emphasise their achievements: Anderson Peters (former 2-time world champion, Olympic medalist), Thomas Rohler (former Olympic champion), Julius Yego (former World Champion, Olympic medalist), Curtis Thompson (current world lead with a throw of 87.76m), Luiz Mauricio da Silva (Paris Olympic finalist).
“There will be some more European athletes, and Indian too. I spoke to Rohit [Yadav] yesterday. We’ll try to have 3-4 Indian athletes,” he said, before adding with a big laugh, “oh, I’ll compete too, eh!”
“We’re in talks with more,” he said. “I have spoken to Arshad [Nadeem, Olympic champion], and he said he’ll discuss with his coach and tell us. But there’s no confirmation as yet.”
“It’s very exciting for me to just think that our athletes will be competing with the highest-level international athletes,” he said. “It’s a Category A event, so it will be good for the Indian athletes competing because you’ll get more points and that will help when it comes to World Championship qualifications.”
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This event has seen Neeraj do something he’s never done before: think about the organizing of the kind of events he usually just rocks up to and dominates. “It was initially planned for Panchkula, but there were some issues with floodlights. For world athletics and their broadcast, they need the lights to be of 600 lux, but we had lower in Panchkula.”
“I used to just compete, train, eat, sleep”, he said, with a laugh “but now I’m opening up to these new areas. It was challenging at first, but we must step out of our comfort zones if we want to do something different.”
The floodlight issue at Panchkula, for instance, was eye-opening. “I didn’t know you needed a certain amount of lux for international TV channels,” he said. Now he’s looking into everything. “I am even looking at how the washrooms are, how the gyms are, how will the hotel rooms be, how the food should be, the quality of the grass on the ground, how the track is, how the changing rooms are, how the spectator seating is, how we can call more people to come to the event…”
It’s now a matter of personal pride, and he’s sweating the small details. He joked about making sure the athletes land at Bengaluru airport’s new, and very appealing, Terminal 2 to make sure they’re impressed.
It’s not just the basic nitty-gritty of organization, either. He’s thinking out-of-the-box, “eating the team’s heads” as he says it, wondering how to make it a better viewing experience: “maybe some sort of celebration when an athlete crosses the 85m mark?” As challenging as it must be, it’s plainly evident that he’s loving it.
“People keep saying I’ve won everything,” he said. “But this is also a dream that’s happening. It was not on my radar, never a question for you guys either… it shows how new dreams keep forming, how we can keep pushing ourselves.”
The undisputed face of the sport in the country, he’s confident an event of this level, an annual one at that, will help popularize track and field in India even more. There will be tickets for the general public, and the details of pricing and distribution will be finalized over the next couple of days. “Right now, when we compete in Europe, it’s 11 -12 in the night here, so people are asleep, or it’s not shown properly. Now, finally, it’s in India – people can watch it live, sitting in the stadium.”
He can’t wait for it to start. “It’s a bit difficult to believe [that it’s finally happening], but I am very excited about it.”
