New Delhi [India], August 9 : Former Sri Lankan cricketer Lasith Malinga on Friday heaped praise on javelinist Neeraj Chopra for his silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
He also congratulated Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan who bagged gold at the same Olympic event.
Malinga congratulated both athletes on social media and stating the whole of 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 shared a post on X
https://x.com/malinga_ninety9/status/1821637492497641757
Chopra, 26, fell short of retaining his gold medal, finishing with a best throw of 89.45 metres.
Despite a strong performance on his 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.
Neeraj delivered his season-best attempt of 89.45m, but it wasn't close to Arshad's humongous throw of 92.97 meters.
Nadeem won gold with a throw of 92.97 meters, 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 had achieved a throw of 89.34 meters in the Group B qualification round, 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 the failure to defend his gold medal, Neeraj expressed dissatisfaction with his performance and revealed that the last two to three years were not good for him in terms of fitness.
Speaking after the event as quoted by Olympics.com, Neeraj said, "It was a good throw but I am not that happy with my performance today. My technique and runway was not that good. (I managed) only one throw, the rest I fouled."
"(For my) second throw I believed in myself to think I can also throw that far. But in javelin, if your run is not so good, you cannot throw very far," added Neeraj.
The Indian ace javelin thrower, who also is the current Asian Games champion, said that injuries leading upto his title defence in Paris made some difference and he will have to work on being injury-free and on his technique.
"The last two or three years were not so good for me. I am always injured. I really tried hard, but I have to work on my injury (staying injury-free) and technique," the 26-year-old added.
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