Neeraj Chopra, who won a gold medal at the recently-concluded Tokyo Olympics and holds subedar rank in the Indian Army has been trained to fight a different battle, said an official of the Indian Army's Mission Olympics Wing.
"He (Neeraj Chopra) is a soldier, but not a soldier who has been trained to fight. He is fighting a different battle," the official said.
Talking about the selection of Neeraj Chopra into the Army, the official said Subedar Kashinath, who bagged a bronze medal at Commonwealth Games in 2010, discovered the javelin prodigy.
"Kashinath reported that there is a boy who is throwing 80 Plus metres and then we reported it to Army Sports Institute (ASI). In January 2016, we approached him and told him about the ASI, and we will take you in a rank. Normally Army doesn't tend to take. So, that is how he was taken into the rank of Naik subedar. It was after his enrollment in the Army in August 2016, he shot to fame by breaking the junior world record," he said.
Asked about the credit of Chopra's success, the Mission Olympics Wing official said it is a team effort involving Federations, Sports Authority of India, and where the Indian Army worked silently.
"In Neeraj's case, there was a good amount of foreign exposure and foreign training. I think his sponsors, Sports Authority of India and all have done a credible job. The Army worked silently and has been supporting him constantly," the official added.
16 athletes from the Army represented the Indian contingent in Tokyo Olympics. Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav were in the Archery contingent whereas Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav participated and Irfan KT, Sandeep Kumar, Rahul, Gurpreet Singh, sable Avinash, Neeraj Chopra, Arokia Rajiv were part of the Athletics contingent.
In the boxing contingent, Satish Kumar, Subedar Amit Pangel, Satish Kumar participated in Tokyo Olympics.
From Wrestling Deepak Punia and from sailing Vishnu Saravanan participated. In the field of Rowing Arvind Singh and Arjun Lal Jat were the participants who were from mission Olympics.
Over 400 potential athletes are training under the Mission Olympics initiative of the Indian army for the upcoming events.
Indian Army Mission Olympics officials also hinted towards inducting women in the initiative and said 7 female boxers have been identified.
"We have started talent scouting, we will send them to ASI," officials said.
The next target of the Mission Olympics will be Asian Games and Commonwealth Games next year.
( With inputs from ANI )
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