Neeraj Chopra
Subedar Neeraj Chopra (born December 24, 1997) is an Indian track and field athlete and the Olympic javelin throw champion. Chopra is a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) in the Indian Army and is the first Indian track and field athlete to win a gold medal in the Olympics. He is also the first Indian track and field athlete to win in the IAAF World U20 Championships, where he established a world under-20 record throw of 86.48 meters in 2016, making him the first Indian athlete to do so.
Chopra competed in both the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games in 2018, acting as the flag bearer for the latter and earning gold medals in both. Chopra won the gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with a throw of 87.58 meters on his second try on August 7, 2021. He is one of just two Indians to win an individual Olympic gold medal (the other being Abhinav Bindra) as of 2021, the youngest Indian Olympic gold champion in an individual event and the only one to win gold in his Olympic debut.
Neeraj Chopra was born in the village of Khandra in the Panipat district of Haryana to a Ror family. His family is primarily agricultural, and he has two sisters.
He graduated from Chandigarh's Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College and is now pursuing a Bachelor of Arts at Lovely Professional University in Jalandhar, Punjab, as of 2021.
After local youngsters mocked him about his childhood obesity, Chopra's father registered him in a gymnasium in Madlauda; he was then enrolled in a gym in Panipat. While playing at Shivaji stadium in Panipat, he observed several javelin throwers and started participating.
Chopra attended the adjacent Panipat Sports Authority of India (SAI) facilities, where javelin thrower Jaiveer Choudhary identified his early promise in the winter of 2010. Observing Chopra's ability to produce a 40-meter throw without training and being pleased by his desire, Choudhary became his first coach.
Chopra acquired the fundamentals of the sport from Choudhary and a few more experienced competitors who had trained under a javelin instructor in Jalandhar. He immediately won his first medal, a bronze in the district championships, and then convinced his family to let him reside in Panipat while honing his talents.