Neeraj Chopra
The javelin thrower from Panipat who won India's first Olympic gold in athletics at Tokyo 2020, honoured with the Padma Shri in 2022.
Neeraj Chopra is a javelin thrower and the first Indian to win an Olympic gold medal in athletics. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2022 in the field of sports, from Haryana [1].
A boy at the stadium
Chopra was born on 24 December 1997 in Panipat district to Satish Kumar and Saroj Devi [2]. At 13 he watched older athletes practising the javelin at a nearby stadium and began training with them [2]. He moved to Panchkula to train, and later joined the national camp at Patiala [2].
Records and titles
He first made headlines with a throw of 86.48m at the World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, a junior world record and India’s first gold at that event [2]. In 2018 he won gold at both the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games, the second Indian track and field athlete after Milkha Singh to do so in the same year, and carried India’s flag at the Asian Games opening ceremony in Jakarta [2]. Earlier titles included the South Asian Games in 2016 and the Asian Championships a year later [2].
Tokyo 2020
He came back from a serious elbow injury in 2019, and on 7 August 2021, at his first Olympics, won the javelin gold in Tokyo [2]. At the time of the award his national record stood at 88.07m [2].
A junior commissioned officer in the Indian Army, he has received the Vishisht Seva Medal and the Param Vishisht Seva Medal, along with the Arjuna Award in 2018 and the Khel Ratna in 2021 [2].
Sources
- [1] Padma Awards 2022: list of awardees — Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Accessed 24 October 2026.
- [2] Padma Awards 2022: citation for Neeraj Chopra — Padma Awards, Government of India. Accessed 24 October 2026.
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