New Delhi: A stadium within the Army Sports Institute in Pune will be named ‘Neeraj Chopra Army Sports Institute’, in honour of the 23-year-old, who created history at the Tokyo Olympics clinching India’s only second Olympics individual gold. The decision was taken on Saturday.
The Haryana-lad threw his javelin to 87.58m in Tokyo on August 7 to become India’s first Olympic medallist in track and field in history. Milkha Singha (400m, 1960 Games) and PT Usha (400mH, 1984 LA Games) were the only Indian track and field athletes to have come to an Olympic medal when both of them finished fourth.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will officially name the stadium on August 23. He will be accompanied by the Army chief General M M Narvane and Lieutenant Governer JS Nain on this tour. Chopra also became the second Indian to win an individual Olympic gold after Abhinav Bindra in 2008.
Meanwhile, Singh will honour 16 other Olympians during his visit to ASI, in addition to speaking to troops and athletes training at the premier facility. Apart from inaugurating a new building on campus, Singh will also chair the institute’s General Body Meeting and interact with M.Tech and PhD students at DIAT.
Neeraj’s historic golden throw in the Olympics has been listed as one of the 10 magical moments of athletics (track and field) in the Tokyo Olympics by World Athletics.
