Mumbai, Sep 17 (IANS)| Olympic gold medalist Neeraj Chopra, who will be seen in the hot seat on Friday in the episode ‘Shaandaar Friday’ in ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati 13’, will share his story on the show as to why and how he chose javelin throwing as a sport. He told that to be honest, when I was 13- 14 years old, then I was overweight. My uncle (mama) insisted that I take up sports. He asked me to choose between sports and studies, thinking that he would be proud of me. I told him my favorite study.
“To which he said that he knew how much I read and asked me to play the game. So, when he sent me to a stadium, I was not sure if I would be able to play any sport.” I just went there to lose weight. The stadium was 15-16 kms away from my village and I used to travel by bus. That bus used to stop 2 km ahead of the stadium and I had to walk the rest of the way. After a month or two my fitness improved.
Neeraj said that there were a lot of games in the stadium but I saw my seniors throwing javelin and I loved seeing it getting stuck in the field from a long distance and I thought I wanted to do something similar. I tried it and enjoyed it a lot. He said my senior Jai, he thought my throw was good and asked me to join him. I don’t know what happened and what I liked about it, but I thought it was a game I wanted to take up.
When I took up this sport, I never thought of representing India in the Olympics. I just put all my energy into the game and played the game hard. I am fortunate that I got a lot of support and guidance from my family and seniors and today, I won gold for my country. Olympians PR Sreejesh and Neeraj Chopra will be the special guests on the ‘Shaandaar Friday’ episode of ‘KBC 13’ to air on September 17 on Sony Entertainment Television.
Mumbai, Sep 17 (IANS)| Olympic gold medalist Neeraj Chopra, who will be seen in the hot seat on Friday in the episode ‘Shaandaar Friday’ in ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati 13’, will share his story on the show as to why and how he chose javelin throwing as a sport. He told that to be honest, when I was 13- 14 years old, then I was overweight. My uncle (mama) insisted that I take up sports. He asked me to choose between sports and studies, thinking that he would be proud of me. I told him my favorite study.
“To which he said that he knew how much I read and asked me to play the game. So, when he sent me to a stadium, I was not sure if I would be able to play any sport.” I just went there to lose weight. The stadium was 15-16 kms away from my village and I used to travel by bus. That bus used to stop 2 km ahead of the stadium and I had to walk the rest of the way. After a month or two my fitness improved.
Neeraj said that there were a lot of games in the stadium but I saw my seniors throwing javelin and I loved seeing it getting stuck in the field from a long distance and I thought I wanted to do something similar. I tried it and enjoyed it a lot. He said my senior Jai, he thought my throw was good and asked me to join him. I don’t know what happened and what I liked about it, but I thought it was a game I wanted to take up.
When I took up this sport, I never thought of representing India in the Olympics. I just put all my energy into the game and played the game hard. I am fortunate that I got a lot of support and guidance from my family and seniors and today, I won gold for my country. Olympians PR Sreejesh and Neeraj Chopra will be the special guests on the ‘Shaandaar Friday’ episode of ‘KBC 13’ to air on September 17 on Sony Entertainment Television.
