Neeraj Chopra Classic landmark event in Indian athletics: Anju Bobby George

The Neeraj Chopra Classic, the first-ever A-listed World Athletics event in India, to be held on Saturday in Bengaluru, sees world champion and two-time Olympic medallist Neeraj Chopra wear the twin hats of title favourite and main organiser. The day-long event, featuring only javelin for the first year, will be held at Sree Kanteerava Stadium.

Backed by JSW Sports, Neeraj's sponsors since his pre-Tokyo days, the showpiece event has received major endorsement from corporates, with Athletics Federation of India (AFI) providing all technical knowhow. ‘’It’s a landmark event for Indian athletics. Earlier, our athletes who did well had to look to IAAF Golden League meets for exposure of this stature, but now we can claim to have one such in India itself,’’ said Anju Bobby George, the long-jump ace who gave India its first World Championship medal in Paris with a bronze in 2003.

Speaking to National Herald over phone, Anju, a senior vice-president with AFI, is excited to be one of the judges at the competition. ‘’Such signature events branded after an athlete is rare in our sport. The fact that there are five Indians in a 12-man field of such stature shows that Neeraj’s success had been inspirational. The improvement in Indian athletics is a result of our grassroots development and I hope tomorrow’s event will further popularise it among the youth,’’ said Anju.

Meanwhile, speaking at a felicitation ceremony of the Karnataka Olympic Association on Thursday, Neeraj admitted it had not been easy for him to  balance the twin roles of competitor and organiser. ‘’The toughest part is the training. I competed in Paris and Ostrava and travelled to Bengaluru, so I will try my level best. We also have to arrange everything together,’’ he said.

The event, initially supposed to be held in Panchkula before being shifted to Bengaluru over floodlight concerns, overcame a jinxed start as the India-Pakistan conflict in May saw it being indefinitely postponed from its original date of 25 May. Pakistan's Olympic gold medallist Arshad Nadeem had been extended an invitation as a marquee thrower, but athletics buffs will now have to wait for the World Athletics in August for a repeat face-off between him and Neeraj.

'Organiser' Neeraj paid a courtesy visit to Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday and promised that from being a javelin-only event in the first year, the meet would add more later. ‘’We also have to talk to all the athletes about how to make it better but everything is going well. We will handle this and also compete. But the biggest goal is to make it (the event) bigger,’’ he said.

‘‘We are going to add more events so that our Indian athletes who do well at the global level will get a chance in India to compete among other good athletes. So, we intend to increase this event further,’’ he added.

An indicator of the potential brand value of the event lies in the fact that a series of big corporates are already on board. While Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) is accelerating the event, the likes of Visa, Audi India, Bodyarmor Lyte ORS, Duolingo English Test are among other collaborators, with Snapchat as content partner.

The 12-man javelin field features seven international athletes and five Indians, including Neeraj himself. Among the foreign competitors are Germany's 2016 Olympic gold medallist Thomas Rohler (PB: 93.90m), Kenya's 2015 world champion Julius Yego (PB: 92.72m), Curtis Thompson of the USA (PB: 87.76m), Czech thrower Martin Konecny (PB: 80.59m), Brazil's Luiz Mauricio da Silva (PB: 86.62m), Sri Lanka's Rumesh Pathirage (PB: 85.45m), and Poland's Cyprian Mrzyglod (PB: 85.92m).

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 Neeraj Chopra Classic

 Venue: Kanteerava Stadium, Bengaluru

 Time: 6.30 pm IST

 Telecast: Live on Star Sports & Jio Hotstar