ROOTING FOR TEAM INDIA

THE YEAR 2022 WILL AFFORD ALL INDIAN SPORTSPERSONS THE OPPORTUNITY TO EITHER PROVE THEMSELVES OR REINVENT THE SPORT ITSELF

- SHARDA UGRA

To see the big picture of what is in store across Indian sport in 2022, let’s turn to our alpha male. Not Virat Kohli, Neeraj Chopra. Olympic gold medallist, javelin-flinging stereotype-buster, answer to our previously-unfulfilled dreams, Chopra’s 2022 is going to be, like for Indian sport, a year of living breathlessly. Omicron or not, in 2022, Chopra undertakes the biggest test of his life—to establish whether Tokyo was a starting point or rest house. In July 2022, Chopra will compete in his first-ever senior World Athletics Championships, as the world’s No.4 javelin thrower. The three ahead of him will be itching to re-stomp their superiority over the Indian who, operating in what can only be called a Zone of Zen, toppled carts and ranking charts in Tokyo.

For Chopra, 2022 carries peak pressure and also peaking pressure. He must find his best physical groove against the competition at hand, not once but three times in a year. After the Worlds, within 60 days, Chopra will defend the two other international titles he holds, as the Commonwealth Games (CWG) and Asian Games (AG) champion. He had the option to peak at the Worlds and then opt out of at least one of the other big Games but chose not to. “I am an athlete, my job is to work,” he said to me, even when awash in his celebratory post-Tokyo cascade.