Effortless Neeraj Chopra enters final in style

PARIS: It’s always a bit crazy inside the athletics stadium. The sport itself is considered the Blue Riband event of the Olympics, just like swimming and gymnastics. While the last two are confined within the walls of halls, athletics is held outdoors. True to its grandeur, it is assigned to the best quarters. Here in Paris, the grand Stade de France, a place that’s more than just a cathedral of sports, is hosting the events.

As soon as one walks into the stadium, the purple Mondo tracks stare straight at you. The newly-laid track has created as much hype around its fast air-bubble sandwiched base, its speed as the athletics event itself. One Mondo Duplantis had the most sublime moment on Monday when he created a world record with 6.25m in pole vault final. The performance was like Beethovan’s Symphony No 9 enjoyable and flawless; something that touches the heart. The next best vault underlines the US-born Swede’s supremacy in a sport he made his own. Sam Kendricks at 5.95m was second. He exorcised the ghost of Tokyo 2020 when he was quarantined after testing positive.

That’s in the past. For India, athletics is all about the one man Olympic and world champion Neeraj Chopra. He almost vanished from international competition after the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku in June. His last major competition before that was at the Doha Diamond League, where he began his season. His best was 88.36m there. Coming into the Olympics, he had a bit of an issue with the abductor muscles. However, here he seemed fit.