With the decline of the Pakistan men's hockey team, the country's famous sporting rivalry with neighbour India had pretty much disappeared from the Olympics until it resurfaced in arguably the most unexpected of sporting disciplines. Both nations have traditionally been woefully behind the rest of the world in track and field disciplines and yet, it is in javelin throw that the friendly rivalry between India's Neeraj Chopra and Pakistan's Arshad Nadeem exploded onto the Olympic stage at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024. 

While Neeraj won gold and Arshad couldn't medal in Tokyo, both athletes dominated the field in Paris and the latter shattered the Olympic record to take gold. Neeraj threw much father than what he managed in Tokyo and yet could only get to silver. To beat Nadeem's throw, the Indian would've had to do the one thing he hasn't managed in his career - throw more than 90m. 

Neeraj, however, came close to that mark with his best throw being 89.45m. This is despite him managing a groin injury. Neeraj had joined rifle shooter Abhinav Bindra as the only Indians to have won an Olympic gold medal in an individual event in Tokyo. Bindra felt that Neeraj following up his 2021 gold with a silver in 2024 was an “Incredible feat”.

“I think we are all very proud of him. The Pakistani (Arshad Nadeem) is a worthy winner on the day, the way he performed. But I think Neeraj should be proud of himself,” Bindra is quoted as saying by The Indian Express. 

Bindra noted the amount of expectations on him. Neeraj was pretty much the only Indian for whom gold was an expectation and not a distant target. “There will be a level of disappointment, which is fine, because that’s how the life of an athlete is. You’re not gonna get everything going your way, but he performed admirably. A lot of expectations were also on him. It’s not easy to be in that spot, but he delivered. Now, he can go back to the drawing board and reassess what needs to be done. Really work on how he can make the big leap,” said Bindra. 

‘Olympics is a platform which is imperfect for performance’

Bindra noted that the Olympics is an imperfect platform for athletes to put in their best performance as there are so many factors swirling around it. “The Olympics is a very, very hard platform to perform at for a variety of reasons. But the Olympics is also a platform which is imperfect for performance. Because there’s external expectations, and you also have internal expectations, that just doesn’t allow you to let go,” said Bindra. 

The 2008 gold medallist said that athletes need to have a certain amount of freedom to let go and put in their best performance but that is rarely ever possible at the Olympics. “Performance sometimes is almost artistic in nature. That’s where you almost have to allow it to happen. And the ability to let go is very difficult. So skill is almost thrown into the dustbin. Sometimes for most athletes, there will be a few who are just so great, but for a majority, it’s not just picking up your skill and trying to get things together. You have to almost find perfection on that imperfect day,” he said. 

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