Neeraj Chopra explains how India can rise in sports, Olympic javelin champion cites USA example for improvement

Balancing sports along with education is a huge task in India. While a few excel, the bigger percentage of individuals has to sacrifice one for the other. Olympic champion javelin ace Neeraj Chopra opined both can be managed equally and in a proper way.

In a country of more than 1.4 billion, doing well in studies and make a stable career is more welcoming than chasing a career in sports. There are reasons for it as one needs to enter a proper ecosystem to excel along with dedication and hard work to make a name for himself in a particular discipline in sports.

“If you talk about studies and sports, I feel both can be managed equally,” Neeraj Chopra told Lallantop. “The biggest example are the athletes from United States of America.

“At the Olympics, the USA team comprises mostly student athletes from universities and win more medals than others. I think in India, the schools and universities should adopt the same and once integrated, India will see a big rise in sports,” added the Tokyo Olympics gold medallist.

Cricket is worshipped as God in Indian households. But as far as non-cricket sports are concerned, India still lag behind by a big margin as compared to other Asian or European countries. Having said that, things have changed for better in the past decade.

From a collective 13 Olympic medals from 2000 to 2016, India have come a long way in securing 13 medals (7 in Tokyo 2020 & 6 in Paris 2024)in the previous two editions. The numbers in Paris could have been more had not India endured six fourth place-finishes.

According to Chopra, sports is not only about winning medals at Olympics, but its much more than that. “Playing sports doesn’t only mean, ‘go and win medals at Olympics’.

“Things have changed in our country now. Even COVID also taught us that we need to play sports to keep ourselves physically fit, boost our immune system,” said the Haryana lad who bagged a silver in Paris Olympics last year.