Gold medalist Neeraj Chopra to skip National Games due to groin injury

Despite a directive from the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), champion javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra is finding it difficult to participate in the upcoming National Games. He is about to skip tournament due to a long international season and a groin injury.

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Neeraj Chopra, who won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, achieved another historic feat by winning the prestigious Diamond League Final title in Zurich on Thursday. He became the first Indian to win this title. A day later, IOA asked him about his participation in the National Games. The tournament will be held in different cities of Gujarat from 29 September to 12 October.

Chopra told reporters, "As per my schedule planned at the start of the year, this was supposed to be my last event of the season. I would have participated in the Asian Games around this time but that was postponed. We already knew about it, so my season ended with the Zurich event. The dates for the National Games were announced recently."  

The IOA has made it mandatory for the country's top athletes to participate in the Games, which may require many players to revise their training schedules. The IOA's directive comes after the launch of the Games' mascot and national anthem by Home Minister Amit Shah. In this program, Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur said that this will be the biggest and grandest National Games ever. Although, the National Games happening after a long interval of seven years.

Due to this injury, Chopra was unable to participate in the Commonwealth Games in July-August this year after winning a silver medal at the World Champions in the US. However, they qualified for the final here a month later by winning the Diamond League series on 26 August.

He is the first Indian player to win gold in Diamond League Meet. He won the title in Lausanne with a third career best throw of 89.08m.

Also read: Neeraj Chopra is back in training with the aim of repeating history in 2022

In Zurich, Chopra started with a foul but reached the top in his second attempt with a throw of 88.44m. This is the fourth best performance of his career which eventually won him the gold medal. He threw 88.00 m, 86.11 m, 87.00 m and 83.60 m in his next four attempts.