Neeraj Chopra – India’s «golden star» loves Switzerland and brings people together
Ever since his Olympic triumph, Neeraj Chopra has been more than just the most successful javelin thrower in Asia. He is India’s “golden star”, a popular hero with 1.4 billion pairs of eyes on him whenever he competes. Wherever the most followed athletics star appears, there is a commotion; cameras are clicking, excited fans are pushing and shoving, trying to get a photo or a chat. This is why the 27-year-old treasures calm summers in Europe and Switzerland’s beautiful sceneries. This is where he recharges his batteries, prepares for the next 90m throw, and gets inspiration – from the UBS Kids Cup, for instance. After all, he is also working on getting kids moving in his home country.
For five years, he kept hearing the same question over and over again, both in English and in Hindi: “Neeraj, when will you throw 90m?”. He had done so already, in training, and with various throwing objects. However, in a competition, when throwing a 800g javelin, the magic barrier appeared out of reach. He did not break it when taking Olympic gold in Tokyo (87.58m) or when winning the Wanda Diamond League final in Zurich in 2022 (88.44m). It happened neither when he claimed the 2023 world championship title (88.17m) nor when he won a silver medal at the Olympic Games in 2024 (89.45m).
But then came the third attempt in Doha on 16 May 2025. Neeraj’s javelin shot through the dark night, spinning on its axis, and landing, at long last, at 90.23m! Neeraj Chopra became the 25th member of the exclusive 90m club. Minutes later, former European champion Julian Weber followed suit with 91.06m (a world leading performance). The two rivals and friends celebrated their personal milestones together.
An athlete-coach team of world record holders
The foundations for the big throw were laid by Dr. Klaus Bartonietz in 2019. The 75-year-old German biomechanics expert opened the doors to world class athletics for young Neeraj, as he once put it. But he would have to go through that door it himself, of course. Bartonietz had helped an extremely disciplined, talented, and versatile athlete become a champion who keeps reimagining his sport and developing creative exercises together with his physiotherapist Ishan Marwaha.
At the end of 2024, Chopra’s mentor retired, and, with the help of his Swiss management team, he found new one in a living legend: Jan Železný. Still the world record holder to this day (98.48.m), the Czech star broke the 90m mark as many as 53 times in 34 competitions. To Neeraj, who holds the world U20 record (86.48m), Železný, is both a role model and a source of inspiration. Both are known for their filigreed throwing technique rather than for using sheer muscular power. Their new cooperation has come to fruition this season already. But the two know that they can get the javelin to fly even farther if technique, speed, and timing are perfect.
A farmer’s son and a medal hunter
Compared to some of the giants in the javelin throw, Chopra may seem almost slight. His strengths include speed and a lightning-fast right arm, features that are beneficial in cricket, India’s national sport, as well. But the son of a farmer from Khandra, a small village near the border with Pakistan, chose athletics. Or maybe fate chose it for him.
An overweight boy, he was bullied by kids in school. So, his farther sent him to the local gym to work on his fitness. Then, an uncle brought him to the nearby Shivaji Stadium. Despite difficult conditions (there was no synthetic running track, for instance) Neeraj instantly fell in love with javelin throw, a discipline as old as time. Humans had used it when hunting in the Stone Age; Neeraj turned the skill into a mission in life, he uses the javelin to hunt for medals.
Idol of an entire nation
Neeraj Chopra developed into serial winner, a “golden thrower”, starting out at local competitions and national championships, and then moving on to continental and global stages of the sport. After joining the army in 2016, the former world junior champion and current lieutenant-colonel has kept securing gold medal after gold medal at all levels – at the Asian Athletics Championships (2017), at the Asian Games (2018/2023) and the Commonwealth Games (2018), and also at the Olympic Games (2021), and at world championships (2023).
The gold medal throw at his Olympic debut in Tokyo was an achievement for the history books. At the age of 23, he was the second individual Indian Olympic champion and the first in athletics. For the most populated country in the world, of course, he had done more than win a title. He became a beacon of hope, an idol for an entire nation. Millions of children dream about following in his footsteps and winning their own international medal, maybe even in their own country. India is a candidate for the 2036 Olympic Games.
Ambassador for youth sports and meeting promoter
Neeraj Chopra will not be participating then. But he is committed to help the generation of athletes who will. As an ambassador for the UBS Athletics Kids Cup, he introduces Indian children to running, jumping, and throwing. His work is inspired by the Swiss initiative, the UBS Kids Cup, organised by Swiss Athletics and Weltklasse Zürich. Neeraj had attended the series’ national final at Letzigrund Stadium two days after his win at Weltklasse Zürich in 2022.
He is also thinking big when it comes to his own flagship project, the Neeraj Chopra Classic. The meeting premiered this July in Bengaluru and drew 15 000 excited fans. The javelin event’s line-up featured international stars and was awarded a gold status by World Athletics. The country’s celebrated national hero not only managed to win the competition that day, he also took care of the competitors and guests in his capacity as the event’s promoter. “Despite being a megastar in India, Neeraj is probably the most modest person you will ever meet,” said Keny's 2015 javelin throw world champion Julius Yego about his Asian successor.
Fame beyond the world of sport
Yego and the 2012 Olympic champion Keshorn Walcott (Trinidad and Tobago) where the first javelin throwers from the southern hemisphere who managed to break the European javelin throw dominance. By now, the event is more global than ever, and Neeraj Chopra is its biggest promoter. In Paris 2024, he was part of the first all non-European Olympic podium, sharing it with Arshad Nadeem (Pakistan) and Anderson Peters (Grenada). Thanks to Chopra’s more than nine million followers on Instagram, the images of their triumph travelled around the world, illustrating the universality of athletics and showing some of the bridges sport can build.
The appeal of the most written about athlete on the globe has gone beyond the sports universe, as becomes obvious, when Neeraj Chopra is in Switzerland, his home of choice. As a “Friendship Ambassador for India” on behalf of Switzerland Tourism, he introduces Indian visitors to sport hotspots in Zurich and the Alps, he meets with Roger Federer, and attends, together with Mondo Duplantis, the European Master golf tournament presented by their sponsor Omega in Crans-Montana. One of Chopra’s javelins is on display at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, another one rests in the eternal ice of Jungfraujoch.
With the support of enthusiastic Indian fans cheering him at Letzigrund Stadium and of millions of viewers in front of their TV, Neeraj Chopra would like to bring a second diamond trophy back to India. Preferably by means of a 90m throw, or maybe together with another gold medal from Tokyo.
