Neeraj Chopra’s latest launch: Dials competitors to bring home big-ticket athletic action

From being the country’s first-ever track and field Olympic gold medalist to inviting the world’s top javelin throwers for an internationally-recognised event near his home, Neeraj Chopra continues to put Indian athletics on the global map.

While training at his base in South Africa, Chopra, 27, has spent the last couple of years pulling strings and making calls to fulfill his long-time dream of bringing big-time athletics action to India and give his fans a chance to see him compete against the best. The result is the eponymously-named NC Classic, scheduled to take place on May 24 at the Tau Devi Lal Stadium at Panchkula, a Haryana town that is not too far from Chopra’s village.

“Neeraj is very, very hands-on,” said Manisha Malhotra, the president of Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS) and a key

member of Chopra’s entourage who is involved in the organisation the NC Classic. “He’s involved in approaching athletes, inviting them, overseeing how the tournament is run technically… With his experience now, he’s seen various formats of the tournament.”

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Convincing the big stars to make the trip to India got a shade easier last Thursday when World Athletics gave NC Classic a Continental Tour ‘A’ category status, which is second only to the Diamond League, the top-tier competition. The ranking points accumulated here would be crucial in the World Championship qualification race, lending the tournament more significance.

While it is currently believed to be a pure javelin throw event, Chopra is learnt to be exploring the idea of expanding it to other events, if not immediately for the inaugural edition then for the subsequent ones.

High jump national record holder Tejaswin Shankar, now a decathlete, said “events of this kind will open the door for the sport in India to grow”.

“This is how you popularize something! Way to go,” Shankar, the Hangzhou Asian Games silver medallist, wrote on X.

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The tournament has been years in the making and has involved multiple parties — the World Athletics, the Athletics Federation of India, Chopra’s backers JSW Sports and the Haryana government. And Chopra, as a leading member of the organising committee, has been involved in every stage of planning.

This is the case of India’s greatest track-and-field athlete setting up his legacy project, a “way to give something back to the sport”, Malhotra said.

“It was Neeraj’s idea in terms of different things that he’s been wanting to do with athletics in India. Neeraj wants to be more and more involved in the development of the sport,” Malhotra, a former India tennis player, told The Indian Express. “He’s already an ambassador and has spent a lot of time now out (of India), kind of understanding what happens (abroad), what other international athletes do, how they go about their careers and kind of preparing himself to be aligned.”

Since 2020, Chopra has spent most of his time outside India training and competing. As he crisscrossed the world, the two-time Olympics and World medallist observed how some of the top athletes in the world conducted their own tournaments.

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For instance, the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi is named after the Kenyan distance-running legend Kipchoge Keino while Sweden’s pole vault legend Armando Duplantis holds the Mondo Classic; both Continental Tour events. This spring, American great Ryan Crouser will soft-launch a shot put event before a full rollout next year.

Chopra started putting together the pieces for this tournament right after winning the World Championship gold medal in Budapest two years ago.

“He’s obviously taken inspiration from this and wanted to do something with his event in India. How it kind of amalgamated this year was a lot of different kinds of forces coming together. Right from Budapest onwards, there have been discussions between Neeraj, World Athletics and the AFI,” Malhotra said.

Mumbai, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar were some of the cities in contention to host the event. But Panchkula turned out to be an obvious choice. Apart from the logistical convenience, the Tau Devi Lal Stadium was where Chopra trained in his early years. His village, Khandra, too is less than three hours from Panchkula. This, quite literally, was Chopra’s backyard.

In February, during a whistle-stop trip to India, Chopra visited the venue, where renovations are currently underway. Chopra, one of the popular faces on the circuit, has also been speaking to some of the top throwers in the world, inviting them to compete in India. At the same time, he’s been a regular at the planning meetings.

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“This is a little bit out of his comfort zone,” Malhotra said. “But it’s all a question of time management and priorities. If something is a priority, you end up doing it. Maybe he spends less time watching a movie,” she laughed.

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