Road to Paris Olympics 2024: Neeraj Chopra starts with a bang. Mirabai Chanu takes it easy, ticks a box

Neeraj Chopra, 25, is right now the most consistent thrower in the world. Give him the javelin, and he will give you at least 88m.

With a little over a year to go to the Paris Olympics, two of India’s brightest medal prospects opened their season in contrasting styles on May 5, 2023.

The Olympic defending champion Neeraj Chopra got off the road to Paris with an absolute bang, winning the Diamond League in Doha with a 88.67m throw that left the rest of the field, including reigning world champion Anderson Peters and Tokyo silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch with no reply. While the Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Mirabai Chanu could hardly muster a decent lift at the Asian Weightlifting Championships in Jinju, South Korea, finishing a lowly and uncharacteristic sixth.

What does it mean for the two athletes in the context of the upcoming Olympics?

Let’s start with Chopra. His 88.67m was straight away the best throw of the year. Chopra was disappointed. He had hinted before the Doha event that he was looking to breach that elusive 90m mark he has been chasing ever since his historic Tokyo gold. But a stiff headwind put an end to that dream.

The first thing of note is that the 25-year-old remains at the top of his field. And secondly, 90m or not, he is right now the most consistent thrower in the world. Give him the javelin, and he will give you at least 88m.

For some perspective on how special that is, compare Chopra to his two closest rivals, Grenada’s Peters and the Czech Vadlejch. Last year, Peters registered the season’s best throw at a sensational 93.07m. He also hit the 90m mark three more times, but his worst throw of the season was a 71.94m, and he hovered between 80m and 84m multiple times. Vadlejch was more consistent, hitting the 90m mark once last year, but most of his throws were in the range of 81 to 84m, with a couple of 88m-plus to boast of. Chopra hit his personal best of 89.94m, tantalizingly close to that 90 he has been chasing, breached the 89m mark twice more, and registered 88m-plus in all but one competition, where he threw 86.69m.

With a foundation so strong that he throws 88m at will, it is not just a matter of time before he finds his 90m pot of gold, but also a given, barring injury, that he will go into Paris as the man to beat.

“He is there, the 90m mark is there for the taking, but our goal is not a number,” said Chopra’s coach, Klaus Bartonietz, a legend in throwing circles, who has earned the moniker “Dr Javelin” among his peers for his pioneering research into the biomechanics of the sport.

Consider also that the season opener is usually not the time when an athlete is at his or her peak, especially with the Olympics around the corner. The way it works is that coaches and athletes design a training cycle that ensures that the athlete is at his or her absolute best for a couple of the biggest tournaments of the year. The rest of the competitions work as pit stops towards that final goal. Trying to perform at peak abilities for anything more, results in burnout or, worse, injuries. For Chopra, one of the biggies will be the Track & Field World Championships in August. The Asian Games that follow a month later will not need his best for a gold because the field is simply not strong enough to challenge Chopra. And then the training cycle will be an upward curve that crests at the Paris Olympics.

Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Mirabai Chanu has just come off a long rehabilitation process in the US, where she worked with weightlifting coach and physiotherapist Dr Aaron Horschig to fix a lower back issue, a shoulder stability problem, and other little niggles and muscle imbalances.

Mirabai Chanu's road to Paris Olympics 2024

Things are trickier for Chanu, who managed a total lift of 194kg in Jinju, far from her personal best of 207kg, and further from her target of breaching 210kg, the Olympic record set in Tokyo by her main rival and Olympic champion Zhihui Hou of China. What is of more concern is that after a first lift of 85kg in Snatch, she failed to match her own personal best of 88kg in two subsequent attempts, again, falling way short of her goal of crossing the 90kg mark in the event. She then managed one lift of 109kg in the Clean & Jerk, a big step down from her own world record of 119kg in the event, before withdrawing from the rest of her attempts.

At first glance, this may look like trouble ahead for the Manipuri lifter. But there’s a strong case to be made that this result is insignificant in the larger context of the Paris Olympics. India’s weightlifting head coach Vijay Sharma had in fact said exactly that before the Asian Championships began.

“Mira is here only to participate,” Sharma told journalists. “We will take it easy. She will lift 85kg and 110kg, totals that she can get easily.”

That is precisely what happened. But why just go to participate? There are three important reasons. One, because lifters, according to the qualification rules for the Olympics, have to compete at the 2023 World Championships, the 2024 World Cup, and three other International Olympic Committee (IOC) sanctioned events as a bare minimum. The Asian Championships was simply Chanu ticking that minimum events box. Second, of course, is the peaking cycle. If she has to be in top form heading into Paris, it makes no sense for Chanu to try and be at her best right now.

“When the Olympic year comes around, then we will be working at our maximum, and we will be setting world records,” Sharma said.

And third, Chanu has just come off a long rehabilitation process, where she worked with the renowned weightlifting coach and physiotherapist Dr Aaron Horschig in the US, to fix a lower back issue, a shoulder stability problem, and other little niggles and muscle imbalances that make all the difference between a successful lift and a failed one. It makes perfect sense for her to ease her way into competition, testing herself slowly. This is the time to identify more areas of improvement, to understand the weaknesses that still need to be ironed out. This is not the time to rush in and give in to competitive pressures.

In Sharma and Horschig, Chanu has two clear-eyed strategists who know exactly what’s needed and when. The next 12 months or so will be among the most challenging in Chanu’s life—she will have the 2023 World Championships to contend with in the first week of September, followed immediately by the Asian Games, before at least two other major events and the 2024 World Cup, and only then, the Olympics. She will need all the support she can get.