A day after his statement on Pakistani javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem caused outrage on social media, Olympic gold medalist Neeraj Chopra Thursday advised people to “now no longer use me and my remarks as a medium to further your vested pursuits and propaganda”
In a video posted on Twitter, Chopra said: I would request everyone to please not use me and my comments as a medium to further your vested interests and propaganda. Sports teaches us to be together and united. I’m extremely disappointed to see some of the reactions from the public to my recent comments.
A clip from Chopra’s interview had gone viral Wednesday. In the interview, Chopra said “I was searching for my javelin at the start of the final. I was not able to find it. Suddenly I saw Arshad Nadeem was moving around with my javelin. Then I told him, ‘Bhai give this javelin to me, it is my javelin! I have to throw with it’. Then he gave it back to me.”
This announcement was sufficient for a segment of people on social media to direct hate at Nadeem and allege that he attempted to “tamper” with Chopra’s javelin. A video of Chopra taking the javelin from Nadeem was additionally broadly shared.