 "Neeraj Chopra says he was 'never really close friends' with Arshad Nadeem: 'Things won’t be the same after this'")
Indian javelin star Neeraj Chopra’s friendship with Pakistani rival Arshad Nadeem off the field has been a major talking point in their careers, especially in last year’s Paris Olympics in which the two stood on the podium together. Their incredible achievements not only highlighted India and Pakistan’s rise in the world of athletics – a sporting discipline that is nowhere on the same level as cricket in the Indian subcontinent – it also shone light on the role that sport played in bringing people from different nations together, even those that have shared political hostilities for decades.
The recent terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam and the subsequent military showdown between India and Pakistan, however, changed that narrative completely. Chopra, who has already cemented his legacy as India’s greatest athlete of all time at the age of 27 with an Olympic gold and silver, has stated that things “won’t be the same” between him and Nadeem going forward.
Chopra, who had been conferred the honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel with the Territorial Army earlier this week, added that he wasn’t exactly friends with the Pakistani javelin star, who had won gold in the Paris 2024 Games, but had always reciprocated respectful behaviour from others.
‘If someone talks to me respectfully, I will reciprocate the respect’
“First, we were never really close friends or anything. And things won’t be the same after this (India-Pakistan conflict).
“But, if someone talks to me respectfully, I will reciprocate the respect,” Chopra said at a press conference ahead of the Doha Diamond League, where he will be competing along with three other Indians.
Games
View AllChopra had recently been criticised for inviting Nadeem to the inaugural Neeraj Chopra Classic, a javelin competition that was scheduled to take place later this month – originally in Panchkula, Haryana and being moved to Bengaluru.
Chopra, however, later clarified Nadeem had been invited a couple of days before the Pahalgam attack, and that his participation after the deadly incident was “out of question”. Nadeem, meanwhile, had declined the invitation citing the Asian Athletics Championship in Korea that was to take place around the same time.
The Neeraj Chopra Classic has since been postponed indefinitely due to the recent military showdown between the two nuclear-armed nations that also led to the suspension of the Indian Premier League as well as the Pakistan Super League.
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