How coach Kashinath Naik helped Neeraj Chopra raise the bar | Tokyo Olympics News – Times of India

The story of Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra’s rise from Panipat to the podium is now well-known to millions of sports fans. As the 23-year-old javelin-thrower rose through the ranks to reach the pinnacle, he has never forgotten to express his gratitude to those who helped him through the journey.
Chopra always held his coaches in high esteem, starting from Jaiveer Choudhary, who spotted him, to Dr Klaus Bartonietz, who helped him during the last two years.
Among those who contributed to his all-round development are two Indians, Jaiveer and Kashinath Naik, besides Australian Gary Calvert and German legend Uwe Hohn.

Naik won the bronze medal for India at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, a year before Chopra started training with coach Jaiveer as a 14-year-old. It was India’s first medal in javelin in CWG and the first after the 1982 medal won at the Asian Games.
After his days as an athlete ended, Naik turned to coaching and was assisting Calvert when Chopra won the gold medal with a junior world record at the U-20 World Championships in Poland in 2016.

“Neeraj was selected for the national camp after he impressed all as a junior in the 2015 Federation Cup. He was skinny, throwing with a lot of energy and finished fourth or fifth. It helped him get selected,” Naik, who was a national coach from 2013 to 201818, told TOI.
Naik said Neeraj soon won his first national senior medal in the next few months.
“At the Inter-State in Mangaluru, Devender came first with his personal best of 79m and Neeraj was second with a throw of 75m. Then I took him to compete at the 2015 Asian Championships in Wuhan. Neeraj couldn’t do well as it was raining and only managed a throw of 73-75m.”

Next up was the 2016 South Asian Games and Neeraj did an 82.28m. Then came Calvert and we travelled to Poland where he won the gold in Junior World Championships. But Calvert was here for just over a year before he fell out with AFI and left in 2017,” Naik said.
Naik recalled that after Calvert left, Chopra was without a foreign coach and it was at this time that JSW Sports sent him to Finland to train with Werner Daniel.

Naik to get cash award
Chopra’s big win has brought the focus back on Naik and on Sunday the Karnataka government announced a cash award of Rs 10 lakh for the coach for guiding Chopra.