The Internet has done wonders for the world, in bringing attention to meritorious matters, however lacked attention due to the biases of some media personalities. Athletes have been one of them, the constant media and social media attention on 23-year-old Neeraj Chopra has been at the forefront of this change. The Gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics brought so much attention that, Cricket a darling of Indian media was on the back foot for few days.
Is all this attention good?
No, says Subedar Neeraj Chopra. In an exclusive interview with Times of India, Neeraj expressed disappointment about missing his mid-season tournaments due to excessive attention. After he won Gold at Tokyo, he said that he attended zoom calls for 5 to 6 hours on the Trott. He attended so many functions after the Gold medal that he caught a fever. “I had a fever. I used to be drenched in sweat while attending functions and then I used to get into air-conditioned cars. I wasn’t getting any rest and I wasn’t eating properly because of the busy routine’’, he explains.
Expressing disappointment over missing Diamond league, he said- ‘’ there’s a Diamond League at the end of the month. I had planned to participate in it, but my training stopped completely once I returned from the Olympic Games because of the incessant number of functions. I also fell sick. This is why I feel my fitness is not up there now. I can’t compete properly. That’s why I have to skip the event. I had planned to compete in at least two to three events. These things need to change in Indian sport. All other Olympic champions are participating in Diamond Leagues. Their season is continuing. We can’t be satisfied with one gold medal. We need to think at a global level. We need to continuously perform at global events like the Diamond Leagues’’.
The man with the big courage and soft heart also reflected on the type of media attention athletes are getting, he emphasised sports getting consistent attention over a while, rather than a blitzkrieg. ‘’ It shouldn’t be as if we have to complete every celebration immediately because an Olympic gold medal has come, and then forget about it after a month. The sport needs continuous attention. It shouldn’t be that you start remembering the athletes again after four years after the initial frenzy. These things can be done in small amounts over a period of time’’, said Chopra.
India has a long history of over-celebrating achievements. After cable media propped up in the country, many new channels were running behind Cricket. Slowly with the advent of more and more news channels, the race for TRP forced channels to divert their attention towards other sports too. The Olympics, commonwealth, and ASIAN games did garner some more attention, but India’s performance did not improve much, though coverage of the events went several notches up.
Neeraj Chopra’s achievement is indeed the biggest, after Abhinav Bindra’s Gold medal. Chopra’s Gold medal is the first Indian track and field medal. Cutting through sports bureaucratic hurdles during his teenage years, and then winning 6 Gold medals in different tournaments is not a small feat.
Should we get satisfied as a nation? India has a population of 1.35 billion, and all our system could achieve was one Gold medal in Olympics. Meanwhile, Australia has a population of about 1.88 percentage of India, and they won 17 Gold medals in Tokyo. It reflects on the sporting culture of our country, which is still largely an agricultural economy requiring physical labour at its best.
India has a history of lost sports superstars, who gained much media attention, but slowly disappeared into oblivion. Boxer Vijender Singh and wrestler Sushil Kumar are Indian Olympians who gained instant fame, but their career slowly got overshadowed by unnecessary controversies. Typical celebrity-industry complex surrounding Indian sporting scenes did try to eat on Neeraj Chopra’s fame, but Chopra handled it with grace.
Read more: This is the best ever Olympics for India and the Olympics where India’s upward movement begins
With the Modi Government’s TOPS scheme helping Indian athletes on each step, India should make sure that the attention on the winners should be diverted towards improving sports infrastructure in the country so that more and more medals would come our way.