Neeraj Chopra's gold will help India bring many more medals in future, says Shivpal Singh
Along with Neeraj Chopra, javelin thrower Shivpal Singh too competed at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, but the latter failed to make it to the final of the event. Despite a poor show in the Olympics, Singh feels that Chopra's gold will only help other Indians to perform better in the future.
Indian javelin thrower Shivpal Singh, who participated in the Tokyo Games along with Neeraj Chopra, feels that latter's gold has given a shot in the arm to the sport in the country. Talking to Olympics.com, Singh said that Chopra exceeded expectations when he clinched the top prize at the Olympics.Â
Coming into the competition, Neeraj was expected to win a medal, but it was Germany's Johannes Vetter, who was expected to win the gold, but he failed big time and threw a best of 82.52m. Chopra, on the other hand, threw a distance of 87.58m to win the gold, and become country's second individual gold medalist ever.Â
"Neeraj Chopra was extremely happy but we never expected a gold medal. We were thinking about a medal but after (Johannes) Vetter was eliminated, we were sure that the gold medal belonged to us," Singh told Olympics.com.
"I think it is a big thing for all the javelin throwers in India and they will benefit from it. The juniors will take inspiration from it and bring more medals for the country in future events."
But Singh was disappointed with his own performance and could not even make it to the final of the event. Had he thrown his personal best of 86.23m, he would have secured a bronze at least.Â
"It was a huge experience for me to qualify and take part at Tokyo 2020 but somewhere I am disappointed that I could not replicate my performance from Asian Championships two years ago and the Tokyo 2020 qualification event," Singh said.
"The main aim is to be fit. If I did not have the shoulder injury and was fully fit, then, maybe I could have achieved a podium finish at Tokyo 2020."