Olympic gold medallist Neeraj Chopra, who was on the hot seat in ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati 13′ on Friday for the ‘Shaandaar Shukravaar’ episode, shared his narrative on why and how he became interested in javelin throwing. “Honestly, when I was 13-14 years old, I was overweight,” he says. “My paternal uncle, chachaji, insisted that I participate in athletics.
He even urged me to choose between sports and studies, and I told him I would chose studies, thinking he would be happy of me. He responded by saying he was aware of how much I studied and encouraging me to participate in sports. So I wasn’t sure I’d take up any sport when he sent me to a stadium,” Neeraj Chopra explained.
“All I wanted to do was lose weight so I went there. I used to travel by bus from my hamlet to the stadium, which was 15-16 kilometres distant. I used to have to walk the last 2 kilometres because this bus used to stop 2 kilometres before the stadium.”
“My fitness increased after a month or two,” said Neeraj Chopra. “There were a number of sports in the stadium, but I watched one of my seniors throw a javelin, and I liked seeing it go extremely far and get stuck in the ground, so I wanted to do the same.”
“I tried it and really enjoyed it,” says Neeraj, who is currently ranked second in the world in 2021. PR Sreejesh and Neeraj Chopra, Olympic athletes, also came as special guests on KBC 13’s ‘Shaandaar Shukravaar’ episode.