‘I couldn’t process what was happening’: Neeraj Chopra misses Asian Games due to injury

Neeraj Chopra (PTI Photo) India’s star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra has described missing the Asian Games due to injury as difficult, but said the biggest lesson for athletes is to “accept” failure and focus on coming back.The 28-year-old was set to bid for a third consecutive Asian Games gold medal before injuring his neck in training. The injury came soon after Chopra threw a career-best 88.05m at the Diamond League in Lausanne, ending the 2026 season early and knocking him out of both the Asian Games and the Diamond League finals.Speaking on the Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) Khelo Bharat Podcast, Chopra admitted that the setback was difficult to deal with.“It’s definitely difficult. I wouldn’t say it’s easy,” he said, according to PTI.“It’s become a bit normal for me because it’s happened a few times in my career. There were times when I was very well prepared and suddenly I got injured.“Even after winning a lot of things, you still feel that if you could have used that time without injury, maybe even better things could have happened.”Chopra said the latest injury was even more frustrating because he was finally starting to feel like himself after recovering from an earlier setback.“Feeling that I was finally coming back as the old Neeraj, I threw 88 meters with the same enthusiasm and consistency. Then just a day later I got injured again during practice. The first few minutes were very difficult for me. I couldn’t process what was happening,” he said.The two-time Olympic medalist said he focused on training and competition all year.“I put a lot of pressure on myself, mentally and physically. I started training right from the beginning of the year. I didn’t really spend any time with my family. I focused completely on training and racing because it was a very busy year.”“I kept thinking that after doing so much, I ended up back in the same place I was at the beginning of the year.Rather than ignore the disappointment, Chopra said he allowed himself to go through it before focusing on recovery.“I felt bad and I allowed myself to go through the process. I didn’t fight myself and say, ‘Forget it, it’s okay.’ I felt really bad at first.”“But I think the best thing for an athlete when an injury happens is to accept it as quickly as possible. That’s what I did. I was like, ‘It happened. Now let’s work on how to come back.’Chopra said the timing of the injury was unfortunate with several big competitions coming up, but he has now turned his attention to next season.“The timing was unfortunate because I had some very important competitions coming up. But then I thought maybe it was meant to happen. It did, so now let’s focus on next year’s competitions.”Chopra won India’s first Olympic gold medal in athletics at the Tokyo Olympics and followed it up with a silver medal at the Paris Olympics.