Srinagar: Multiple Olympic medalist Neeraj Chopra has cleared his relationship status with Pakistan Olympic gold medalist javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem.
Ahead of the Doha League on Friday, a reporter asked Neeraj Chopra, “You both (him and Arshad) are close friends on and off the field, you have shown athletes can bring the world together. Will the recent happening affect your relationship?”
“First of all, I really want to clear that I don’t have a very strong relationship. I mean we have to talk…I have good friends in the athletics community all around the world. But if somebody talks to me respectfully, I always like to talk to him respectfully. It’s good that all javelin throwers are…because it’s a very small community, everyone competes for their country, everybody wants to give their best,” Neeraj Chopra replied.
“Because of this (recent border tension between India and Pakistan) I don’t think so, it will be not like something like before. If somebody gives me respect, I will give him the same.”
The Paris Games silver-winning star from Haryana had earlier said he was deeply hurt to see his and his family’s integrity being questioned in abusive social media posts after an invitation was extended to Nadeem to compete in the tournament held in his honour.
Chopra had then clarified that invites for NC Classic were sent out a day before the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people, mostly tourists, were killed by terrorists with links to Pakistan.
At a venue where he will have sizeable crowd support thanks to expatriate Indians, Chopra will face two-time world champion and 2024 Olympics bronze-winner Anderson Peters of Grenada, Jakub Vadlejch of Czechia, who won here in 2024, the German duo of Julian Weber and Max Dehning, Kenya’s Julius Yego and Roderick Genki Dean of Japan.
Almost all of them have been Chopra’s rivals at major competitions for a while now. A notable absentee is 2024 Paris Olympics gold-winner Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan.