Newly crowned world champion Neeraj Chopra hopes to stay injury -free as he has two big events coming up. The 25-year old is set to defend his title at the Diamond League Final and eyes second successive gold in the Asian Games. The Diamond League final is scheduled on September 17. Meanwhile the Asian Games will begin a week later.
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The Diamond League final will be held at Eugene, United States of America. Neeraj Chopra immediately has to travel all the way to Huangzhu in China for the Asian Games. Addressing a press conference on Friday, he said, “There will be a lot of travelling. I want to play both the competitions well and without any injury. There’s not much time left now, I will have to prepare myself well. There is a big time difference and I will try my best.”
He has been troubled with niggles and injury this season. After he began his season in May at the Doha Diamond League, a groin injury made him miss several tournaments as he was out of action for nearly a month. He then came back at the Lausanne Diamond League in July.
“My body is hurting. It’s the life of an athlete”
After winning his World Championship Gold, Neeraj Chopra was in action in Zurich with just four-day gap between both the events. On Thursday, he finished second in the Zurich Diamond League with a best throw of 85.86m.
“Many times you have to understand your body and see which competition is more important. Yesterday, I knew that my body was not ready for the push and I obliged to it,” he said. “My body is hurting because of all the competition. It’s okay. It’s the life of an athlete. What can you do about it?” he added.
Apart from the two big events coming up, Neeraj Chopra has also set sights on the Olympics. He is primed to defend his title. At Tokyo in 2021, he created history by winning a gold medal. “My endevour would be to defend my title. Whatever hard work I need to do to achieve that, I will do,” he said.
“It was a big challenge to win the first title. It will be a bigger challenge to defend it again. Everybody will come prepared. There will also be lot more expectations than earlier. I need to remain healthy and injury-free to repeat my titles” concluded Neeraj.
