Sri Lankan Cricketer Malinga Hails Neeraj Chopra, Says ‘Whole of South Asia is Proud’

Former Sri Lankan cricketer Lasith Malinga on Friday praised javelinist Neeraj Chopra for winning silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics. He also congratulated Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan, who secured gold at the same event.

Malinga took to social media to celebrate both athletes, stating that the entire South Asia region was proud of their achievements. “A huge applause to Arshad Nadeem and Neeraj Chopra for bringing gold and silver medals in the men’s javelin throw at the 2024 Olympics to South Asia. Your incredible achievements make the entire region proud!” Malinga posted on X. Link to post.

Chopra, 26, fell short of retaining his gold medal, finishing with a best throw of 89.45 meters. Despite a strong second attempt, he struggled with four consecutive foul throws, which prevented him from winning gold. Chopra became the second male athlete from post-independence India to win two Olympic medals in an individual event.

Chopra’s season-best throw of 89.45 meters was not enough to match Nadeem’s impressive throw of 92.97 meters. Nadeem won gold with his throw, setting a new Olympic record and surpassing Denmark’s Andreas Thorkildsen’s mark from Beijing 2008. Grenada’s Anderson Peters secured bronze with a throw of 88.54 meters.

Earlier, Chopra achieved a throw of 89.34 meters in the Group B qualification round, which was his second-best all-time throw. Despite a competitive rivalry with Nadeem, where Chopra led 9-0 in their head-to-head matchups, Nadeem’s throw of 90.18 meters at the 2022 Commonwealth Games exceeded Chopra’s top effort.

Following his failure to defend his gold medal, Neeraj expressed dissatisfaction with his performance and revealed that the past two to three years had been challenging in terms of fitness. Speaking after the event, as quoted by Olympics.com, Neeraj said, “It was a good throw, but I am not happy with my performance today. My technique and runway were not that good. I managed only one throw; the rest were fouls.”

“For my second throw, I believed in myself and thought I could throw that far. But in javelin, if your run is not good, you cannot throw very far,” added Neeraj. The Indian ace javelin thrower, who is also the current Asian Games champion, mentioned that injuries leading up to his title defense in Paris affected his performance. He emphasized the need to stay injury-free and improve his technique.

“The last two or three years have not been good for me. I have been injured often. I really tried hard, but I need to work on staying injury-free and improving my technique,” the 26-year-old added.

(With ANI Inputs)

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